


117-9875

by Glossolalia



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Implied Sexual Content, Keith centric, LOVE BETTER TRIUMPH, M/M, Paladin Lore, Pining, Smut, Someone Becomes Evil, The Lance stuff isn't end game, Tragic Romance, Unrequited Love, dark!shiro
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-29
Updated: 2016-08-28
Packaged: 2018-07-18 23:12:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 45,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7334497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glossolalia/pseuds/Glossolalia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The issue with loving a hero is that the hero will never love you more than his cause.</p><p>Keith is not the hero, and time and time again, he must remind himself that Shiro is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 1

The issue with loving a hero is that the hero will never love you more than his cause. There are gods with tendencies more selfish than the conventional hero, and through their good deeds, those aligned with the hero tend to be punished crueler than the rest. Hercules killed his wife and children, and Odysseus left Penelope at the loom for twenty years. Patroclus died in Achilles' armor to preserve his pride, and so on and so forth. Where there is glory, there will be guts, but the guts are never mutually exclusive to enemy bodies.

Takashi Shirogane was a hero, and while a close second, Keith had never kissed the hand of Proper Fate. Instead of becoming a hero alongside the man, he was simply at Shiro's side.

This infallible truth haunted Keith throughout every detail of his life. Long before Shiro was imprisoned by the Galra, he'd known the disparity between them to be as tangible as the skin on his bones, the minerals in the dirt beneath his nails.

Every time he launched himself at Shiro during their private training—back when Keith still believed he had the disposition to be a cadet—Keith planted a single hand against Shiro's broad chest, scraping along his bird-caged heart. At that point, Shiro was usually thrown onto his back, and he habitually allowed Keith to apply most of his weight so that the trainee could soar over him. Like a dance, Shiro grappled onto Keith's forearm, but he always hesitated to toss him.

A split-second of Shiro's rough thumb grazing along Keith's vein accented by a shared lightning gaze; Shiro always flung him on the eight count.

So close, and yet Keith never understood how the distance between them could be so intergalactic. Plumes of the universe stood between them in starry swirls, milky and distracting like cream dribbled into the blackest cup of coffee. Keith fought for everything he had, and he'd become talented at making sure he got what he needed, even if it meant an expulsion of blood. Shiro, though. Shiro was someone he'd never stepped into the ring with. Not really, anyway.

 _Watch yourself_ —and then Shiro's breathless laughter.

Keith could still recall the throbbing pain from awkwardly landing on his shoulders, how he groaned and rolled over onto his side just to watch Shiro's boots step closer to him. Instead of leaping to his feet, he preferred waiting for Shiro to extend his hand to help him.

Solely so that he could yank him down.

_Not in the open, Keith._

Followed by—

_It's not like anyone can see us._

—and then Keith's breathy desperation to love the very hero the world had predetermined would never be his.

The morning Keith woke to the news about Shiro's disappearance, there was yelling down the dormitory hall. Another student, someone who'd idolized the premature graduate as much as the rest, had found out about the failed mission through the morning news.

Keith stoically tossed his legs over the side of the twin bed and dragged his cold feet toward the sliding door. It opened with a whir, but the other pilot-to-be came to a screeching halt when he spotted Keith standing in the hall, pale as a snowcap and unwavering.

The words 'Shiro' and 'dead' glided past him like a wind-tossed leaf. Without looking to the messenger, Keith pushed away from the door and let it slide shut, draining the room of light. He stared at the door and the only sound was electricity.

Keith returned to bed. He didn't cry, but he heard Shiro's voice. It was crystalline, light with amusement and the patient tenderness patented by Shiro alone. Keith heard his name, and the final syllable rang down his tightening throat. It reverberated like a gong, suddenly setting off Keith's gag reflexes. With clenched teeth, he clamped his hands onto his ears and heaved.

_Keith._

_Shut up. Shut up. You're dead._

_Keith, please._

_You are dead._

Impulse told Keith to find Shiro. If he had to, then he'd turn every planet inside out for even a fragment of the man, but for some reason, Keith could only turn himself inside out. He was collapsing, a supernova begging for an assisted suicide. Every scream that toyed with his tongue was choked down in hopes that maybe he'd finally collapse within his final threads of energy.

_Keith._

_Keith._

_Keith._

How had he survived?

" _Keith_!" Lance barked, and he brought his hand in front of the fellow Paladin's face before he snapped his fingers. Once, twice, and like a spell— Keith was suddenly sitting at the sterile table, his teammates expectantly gawking at him. "Keith, are you alright? You here with us, _buddy_?"

"Uh," Keith stalled and brought the spoonful of gelatinous green to his lips. He paused as his brain jerked through the cyclone of conversation he'd entirely missed.

"You did hit your head pretty hard in the training deck yesterday," Pidge said, her concern real and vivid compared to Lance's amusement. "Maybe you should go to the infirmary."

He blinked at the gleaming bowl of chloroform and tried not to lurch. Brain dripping like wet paint as his chest seared, Keith dropped his spoon and pressed his index and middle finger to his figurative third eye. He scooted himself back from the table and stood too kinetically.

_Don't look at him._

"Keith," Shiro started. He sounded _concerned_. "Keith, are you okay?"

The voice was a misfired laser gun. A kind of unfriendly-friendly fire that nailed him in his fleshy abdominals and demanded he hit his knees. _Open your gore for him like a split melon_ , it said, _and complacently catch the blood in your hands again and again. Clean up the mess he made. Don't complain. Don't complain. Don't complain. This doesn't fucking hur_ —

Keith shook his head and sucked air through his clenched teeth. He walked toward the sliding doors, and the exit stood postured like salvation. He was running out of air.

"I'm going to the training deck," he announced without eye contact. "I'll eat later."

"Oh, that sounds like a _great_ idea," Hunk muttered beneath his breath before shoveling another bite between his teeth. He rolled his wrist and pointed his spoon at Keith's striding form. "Let's all go back to the training simulator where we got the sense beat out of us just hours ago. Maybe we can start giving our concussions muscles."

Pidge's frown reached for the tabletop. "Maybe now's not the best time for—"

She didn't finish her warning. A stinging clap resonated throughout the dining hall, stilling everyone's eating and stunning tongues like moles.

It was Shiro's cool robotic palm latching onto Keith's wrist. The Black Paladin hadn't left his chair, but the sheer command in his touch had immobilized Keith. "Don't go back in there until you've been checked out in the infirmary."

"I'm _fine_."

The wavering pitch in his vowels gave him away.

Keith clenched his fist and violently ripped it from Shiro's clasp, nostrils flaring. Like a gust of winter air, he realized what he'd done and cut Shiro an apologetic side glance, but it was too late. The concern in Shiro's face had dispersed into a neutral gaze. His anger was expertly knitted amongst his unwavering self-control as The Leader.

"We should let him cool off," Princess Allura suggested and then set down her spoon to watch Keith's distancing back. "He was thinking all through dinner."

"He's constantly angry lately," Lance said and furrowed his brow, trying to make it sound as if it were Keith's fault. He knew better. "Why is he so angry?"

Hunk shrugged and also tried being dismissive. "You can't look good in that jacket he wears unless you're angry. That's how it works. It's the Science of Cool."

" _Stop_ ," Shiro said, and he was breathy in his mounting impatience. Appetite clearly lost, Shiro stared ahead and past the princess' head. "We've all been through a lot lately. Sometimes what we do out here will make us lose our cool for no reason. It could happen to all of us, and as a team, we have to be patient and understanding."

His words promptly put a stop to the discussion, and eyes lowered from guilt. A silence draped across the dinner table. It wasn't until Coran dropped his spoon on the tabletop did anyone look up from their bowls.

"Dessert, anyone? I whipped up something extra special tonight."

Several floors up, Keith had found solace in barreling at the training droids. With a backdrop of the glimmering universe cycling past like a mobile, Keith threw himself at the simulator using his full bodyweight. He was sweat-drenched and sucking in gulps of air when he swung his Bayard for a pseudo-deathblow. The robot stuttered on its circuits and staggered backward only to slump forward in a handsome defeat. Keith stared at the figurine and then exhaled like a bull.

"Level Nine," he shouted, but the AI didn't respond. Keith cleared his throat and repeated himself. "I said, 'Level Nine!'"

She took an infuriatingly longtime to respond, and Keith had to wonder if she'd been programmed with the aptitude for irritation. "Cannot begin Level Nine without authorization from all parties."

"What?" he muttered, but then from behind him, he heard a throat clear.

Keith spun around and his Bayard dispersed into its grip-form.

"Sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt."

Shiro was leaned against the doorway with both of his tree trunk arms folded across his chest. His smile was apologetic and entirely void of his displeasure from dinner. Keith's forehead wrinkled, and he tucked his weapon into his jacket so that he could subconsciously mirror Shiro's stance, a single hip slumped downward and stare half-lidded.

"Have you given up on hand-to-hand combat?" Shiro asked. It was then Keith realized he'd been watching him for a long time.

Keith's face slackened in mock annoyance. "Not exactly. The sword is just Plan B."

"Plan B," he echoed, and for a reason Keith didn't understand, Shiro had found that funny.

"Plan B is always the sword," he reiterated.

"Be honest. It's more like Plan A.5."

Keith tried not to smile. He resented himself when he did and sucked his expression in like a vacuum, nearly becoming a fish.

"You don't have to," Shiro began as he pushed himself off the wall and slowly meandered toward the other Paladin, "but you can talk to me about what's bothering you if you ever need to. It's not a weakness to be upset by the things that've happened since we arrived here."

_Since we arrived here…_

Keith's smile organically faded into a deadened frown. He parted his lips as if he had something to say, but he decided against it. Keith turned on his heel and let his back face Shiro. He gazed at the moving spacescape. It stood framed by the room's floor-to-ceiling window that made up one of four walls. The window was why this particular training deck was Keith's favorite, and his teammates always knew it was where they could find him if he wasn't lounging in the control room with Shiro.

Two hands grasped onto his shoulders.

Keith fought the urge to reach up and touch them in appreciation.

Bygone days ghosted through his ribs, and the hairs along the back of his neck lifted in habitual yearning. Keith imagined hot breath tearing across his throat's pulse. He ached for Shiro's ability to turn dead legging into the artful motion of gathering him in his arms and tossing him onto the bed. The very bed where he learned that maybe there was a God swimming amongst the stars, and maybe he hadn't been entirely abandoned by Higher Power.

Only God could be responsible for making him feel the way they had together.

_Bigger things than us are about to happen, Keith. We can talk about it after everyone is safe._

"There's nothing to talk about," Keith said, and whatever thought he might've had about them shifted into a quiet thrum. "Not when we have the entire universe to think about."

Shiro dropped his hands from Keith's shoulders, and Keith squeezed his eyes shut in internalized frustration.

There was that distance again.

_It fucking hurts._

"Make sure you check into the infirmary," he said, that authoritative voice stacking even more bricks between them. "Everyone else is going to."

 _Because you're not worth singular compassion_ , it reminded him. _No one is, but especially not you. You're the liability._

"Yes, sir."


	2. 1

Since becoming the Red Paladin, one of the things Keith found the hardest to adjust to was artificial light. It poured in from every nook and cranny the ship had to offer, attempting to mimic the cordiality of a star but never quite replicating its warmth. For Keith, it was startling to discover how dependent the human condition was on organic light. Seasons, moods, celebrations; it all hung on a rotational axis mankind was never meant to live without.

Sometimes, after days of being trapped on the ship with no peaceful planet in sight, Keith dropped his limbs beneath the brightest sliver of artificial UV he could find. There he sprawled and took back every complaint he'd once had about The Sun.

Memories of the desert's neck-searing heat ran through him like a self-inflected diatribe. He missed the rusty granules that collected along his Hamilton cassette player and the army of pig-nosed lizards that haunted his front door. While swirling a spoon through repetitive, green meals, he daydreamed about lounging on his hover ship with a hand-split apple in both palms. Solitary, low-tension moments came back for him like sentient shadows. A landscape of dirty sheets; nearly stepping on a mother scorpion; his thoughtless routine with the Mr. Coffee. Finally, and most importantly, the tempered breathing of a man still tucked into bed behind him.

He would use three scoops of grounds, and by the time the coffee finished, sunlight had tumbled through the windows like a tipped crate of apples and oranges. Spectral light sliced across Shiro's face, and Keith found it ironic how, when he looked at Shiro's scar, he could still imagine the painted dawn, those unbothered mornings, and occasionally, even their happiness.

Before Voltron and Shiro's abduction, he'd had the nerve to believe life was complicated, that he understood every plank essential for building hardship. Now, when he thought back on how difficult he used to believe he had it, he couldn't help but acridly laugh to himself (see: at himself).

_So stupid._

"Working on your tan?"

Keith's entire body deflated. He imagined being rolled up like a Persian rug and used to beat his fellow Paladin. The violent impulse died fast. "Hey, Lance."

It wasn't that he hated Lance. In fact, he didn't _hate_ anyone on the ship, but Lance and Keith were bleach and ammonia. Together, especially on a personable level, they created an incompetent mustard gas.

"How's the noggin today?" Lance crouched down beside Keith, arms draped across his knees and hands sagging. "Shiro said the infirmary detected a pretty nasty concussion."

Keith had never checked into the infirmary.

It was unlike him to ride against a senior officer's word, but he'd showered and slept instead. Keith rolled onto his back and brought his arms beneath his head, wondering if or how he should address Shiro's attempt to cover his disobedience. Not that Shiro was covering _him_ , really. Keith knew Shiro didn't want inner-circle hostility to sink its claws into the team's morale. As long as everyone else believed things were fine, then they were.

"It's better," he said, eyes on the high ceiling. Keith's jaw relaxed. "Thanks for asking. How's everyone else?"

"We're fine! Just _fine_ ," Lance said, suddenly smiling too brightly. Keith slowly turned his head and waited through Lance's pregnant pause, suspicious. "Which is why we're washing all of the lions today."

Keith groaned into his own bicep and then sat up, the back of his mullet threatening the world with a ninety-degree angle. "Together or…"

"Together," Lance reassured him. "Shiro called it a _bonding experiment_. I call it being able to practice my Rose Royce impersonation. _Workin' at the car was_ …"

"I'm going to have to ask you to stop," Keith interrupted and gracefully rose to his feet. Lance stood alongside him, and they drifted toward the hangars. "Whose are we starting with?"

"The Big Guy." Or Shiro's.

They managed to walk halfway down the corridor before Lance started singing again.

After training nonstop for nearly forty-eight hours, Keith didn't mind the busy work. The complete abandonment of premeditated thought was relaxing. While the others talked amongst themselves—scaling the lion like rock climbers—it was Pidge who found the _real_ novelty in their cleaning harnesses. Keith scrubbed with burning biceps, but he slowed and watched her flip herself entirely upside down, holding tight to her main rope as she swore to Lance it was sturdy and safe _enough_. Lance trusted her. He flung himself back and slammed his head against the lion's thigh.

"Be careful," Shiro barked from the top of the lion. Lance laughed, and Shiro's sigh could've been heard on Earth.

Keith stared at the rope holding him thirty feet above ground. He kicked his booted foot against the lion so that it was at the height of his shoulder and smoothly tilted himself backward. From piloting, any kind of vertigo had long since stopped bothering him, but he could still feel the rush of blood draining toward his head, making his nose feel heavy. He closed his eyes and swayed from side-to-side, not realizing the rest of the Paladins were doing the exact same thing, even Shiro.

"This reminds me of something," Shiro said, having descended the side of the lion so fast he appeared like a puff of smoke. Surprised, Keith grunted and accidentally lost his grip. Shiro's GarlaTech arm thrust sideways to catch the back of Keith's head before his skull could go soaring toward the metal abdomen. " _Careful_."

"I would've caught myself with my legs." Keith cautiously returned his hand to the rope. He glanced at Shiro who started to sway in time with him, making them look like a pendulum. He was still cradling the back of Keith's head. Both pretended not to notice. "You said this reminded you of something? Like what? The flight simulators at the Garrison?"

Shiro dropped his hand from Keith's head and effortlessly tugged himself upright, saying mildly, "Not exactly."

Keith continued hanging like a spider, the forefront of his head burning as it had the night before. He inhaled once, attempting to fill his lungs as full as possible. He imagined them bursting, popping like red balloons, but the body's inherent will to live wouldn't allow it. It reminded him of the time one of his fellow students hijacked a hover ship for a joyride and crashed. He was pronounced braindead, but his heart and lungs had fought until his parents signed the paperwork.

The body was a machine, and Keith figured that was why he was so close to his lion. He, too, was full of electricity, fluids and some kind of scientific magic that begged him to exist.

"Enough meditating, everyone," Shiro said, words friendly but still hinged on an order.

Keith pulled himself upright and exhaled with watery eyes, not sure how long he'd been holding his breath. He reached for the murky bucket of water spinning clockwise beside his head and fished out a rag. Shiro was no longer beside him, having tugged himself higher so that he could mop the lion's shoulder blades. Keith reminded himself not to stare, and he didn't.

Lance started to sing again, and Hunk joined him. The two singing together was more tolerable than Lance's solo career.

"Maybe we can make a trip to Earth and grab some music," Hunk said, hopeful. "For morale purposes. For sanity purposes."

Keith smiled to himself. He wished. 

Out of all the lions, the Black Lion was Keith's favorite. From the beginning, he'd felt nearly as connected to it as his Red Lion, but he'd never been able to explain the twinning sensation. The reality of its intensity had become raw when he fought Zarkon. Objectively, the fight was for Shiro and The Universe, but there was something else there. It was a magnetism he couldn't isolate no matter how often he reflected on the fight.

Again, he'd zoned out of the surrounding conversations.

He heard his name, and it was the only reason he returned to the discussion.

Keith furrowed his brow.

"My grandma was a hairdresser," Hunk started, ready to tell his tale if it meant avoiding five more minutes' worth of waxing. He gesticulated with his rag and flicked water on Pidge. She muttered an obscenity beneath her breath and tugged off her glasses to wipe them clean. "Do you know what adds insult to injury with mullets? They're apparently the hardest haircut."

Lance vigorously scrubbed a minute spot, shoulders hunched and stare narrowed in. "People who have mullets are always picky about their mullets, too. Remember when Shiro tried cutting Keith's hair and he had a meltdow—"

"I'm right here," Keith reminded his _friends_. Said _friends_ halted their cleaning to look at Keith to also remind him that they knew. "Whatever."

Hunk decided to nab the final word. "You rock it, though."

Keith dismissively raised an eyebrow, but he regarded the Black Lion's gleaming metal. Staring back at his reflection, he smugly smiled at himself, somewhat self-satisfied and very conscious of the fact Hunk was right. If he had one thing, then it was conventional looks.

"Look at him," Lance mumbled, voice lit with aggravation and mouth twisted to the side. "He's not even _pretending_ he doesn't know." Clearing his throat, his voice proceeded to hike an octave. "My name's Keith, and I'm the Paladin of Beauty and Badass. When we found _my_ lion he was protected by a force field of GQ magazines and _Acqua Di Gio_."

Shiro cleared his throat as if prepared to scold them, but instead, he chuckled. His amusement ceased for a millisecond and returned as a weighted laugh.

Opening his mouth to counter Lance, Keith never got the chance. The overhead lights nervously flickered, and his smile sagged into a startled 'O.' Keith kicked off from the lion and climbed the knotted rope toward the top. There he joined Shiro who was attempting to contact Allura on his earpiece. He wasn't catching signal. When Keith stepped onto the lion's crown, the lights sputtered and flat-lined. Pitch blackness surrounded them like long steeped tea, and his eyes were dazzled by the sudden abandonment of sterile light.

Hunk groaned, tossing his rag with a gross splat. "We are _not_ doing this _again_."

"Paladins!" Allura's chopped voice buzzed over the intercom. Keith had to concentrate on each syllable to understand her. "We're entering foreign magnetic fields that are interrupting the crystal's energy dispersion. Everything's offline. We're going to try overriding what we can, but I need you to find a way to your lions _now_. We need to investigate the situation immediately."

"How does she expect us to get to the hangars if the power is out?" Pidge asked through heavy breathing, lowering herself with searching legs.

Shiro darted toward Keith's side, and his bionic hand breezed along Keith's lower back as he shifted him to the side. He kneeled where Keith had stood and patted the lion's head. The lion's eyes burst with yellow illumination, then thrumming with a harsh purr that Keith felt climb from the tender soles of his feet to both sides of his neck. Everyone could see where they were going, and one-by-one, they dropped to the floor.

"Do you think it's the Galra?" Keith quietly asked Shiro who righted himself. The custard glow surrounded Shiro like a halo, and he glanced over at Keith, mouth pursed into a thin line.

"I'm not sure. We need to get to the control room before we head to the hangars."

Keith nodded and leapt off the Black Lion, using the rope like a pole as he slid downward at breakneck speed. His boots clapped against the floor, and as if on cue, the lights snapped alive.

Allura's voice boomed overhead. "You have fifteen minutes, Paladins!"

They sprinted, feet smacking and radiating echoes with every twist and turn through the castle's unending series of corridors. The group breathlessly appeared in the low-lit control room, but before Shiro could ask questions, Coran and Allura shoved them toward their hangars. The power flickered, and Hunk groaned again.

"Fifteen minutes!" Coran repeated in a nervy sing-song voice. "Better we have Voltron now and ask questions later!"

Keith and Shiro exchanged glances once, as if attempting to communicate telepathically, but they wordlessly turned with a jog in their steps. Keith's guts brewed with the instinctual sense that something was seriously amiss. It climbed the inside of his torso like vines, but he knew he couldn't begin asking questions until he had access to the channel in his helmet.

Once changed and inside the Red Lion's cockpit, he waited for Shiro's strong voice to tell them when to leave and what exactly to do. He sat there, trying not to sweat within the radio silence. Keith reached for his control panel and made adjustments with not just his fingers but his mental link to the sentient robot.

"Is anyone experiencing interference?" Keith asked, hands nervously adjusting, adjusting and adjusting. His stare flicked upward when the hangar flew open, and his fingers wrapped tight around the dual controls. He thrust his arms forward, catapulting the Red Lion toward the inky space's unyielding expanse. He clenched his teeth. "Can someone copy?"

More silence.

Out in the open, Keith realized he was alone. Sweat beaded along the back of his neck, and he nervously licked along his chapped lips while waiting for anything in that imposing darkness. He steadied his breathing, and a flash in his peripheral vision captured his line of sight. Keith snapped his face toward it, and he watched in disdain as every castle window went black.

 _There's nothing out here_ , he realized and swiftly gunned the lion toward the other hangars. He appeared in front of Shiro's first and was startled to see it was still locked tight. He circled around the entirety of the ship and discovered that Shiro's wasn't the only one still shut. From what he could gather, his lion was the only one that had managed to leave the castle.

"Shiro?" he tried again. "Pidge? Hunk? _Lance_? What's happening?"

Again, nothing.

"Shit," Keith muttered beneath his breath, eyes narrowing on the full breadth of the oblivion around him. He was alone. " _Shit_."

Not one to panic under disproportionate amounts of stress, he swooped toward the bridge's windshield. Steadily floating backward, he peered into the darkened room to see two panicked figures wandering like freshly beheaded chickens, fiddling with whatever technology they could smack their hands against. Keith's shoulders dropped. He reminded himself Coran and Allura were capable leaders.

The princess was the first to notice him. She swiftly dove toward the front of the thick glass and beat her fists against it. Allura gestured toward her feet, aggressively pointing. Keith screwed up his eyes and leaned forward to better understand what she was saying, but Coran distractingly appeared beside her. He wildly swung his arms inward and hopped up and down, seemingly crazed. Allura reached to make him stop with a defeated exhale. Slowly and concisely, she began to mouth one word after another.

 _Come_ … _back_ … _in_ … _side_ …

" _Why_?" he mouthed back. 

His screens erupted into a convulsion of blinking red lights, warnings flashing as spec after spec of Galra fleets appeared across his holographic display. Keith's chest pulsated from a torrential downpour of adrenaline. He swung his lion around, ready to face enemy fighter pilots.

There was still _nothing_.

Keening static flooded his headset followed by garbled words, but Keith's blood didn't run cold until he heard Shiro's distorted scream.

"Keith! Get out of there!" Shiro's raspy breathing was followed by a series of what sounded like banging. "Come on. Come on. Open up. Let me _out_ …"

Another voice appeared alongside Shiro's.

"They're using my reverse engineered invisibility!" Pidge explained through her own panic. Lance and Hunk were yet to be heard from. "Keith, you can't take on that many alone."

"Keith," Shiro said, failing at trying to sound calm. "Keith, get back inside."

"But I don't see anything," Keith snapped, his temperamental disposition overriding the fact he couldn't drill through the situation with speed and gusto. "There's nothing out here!"

"That's kind of the point of invisibility!" Pidge shouted, her impatience mounting.

Keith went to jerk his lion toward the hangar, but something stopped him. In the distance—a very far distance for anyone who didn't understand the speed at which a Galra fleet could travel—Keith noticed warbling. There was a buckle in the reality before him, but with a cutting gleam, the warbling peeled back and reveled the most ungodly fleet of Garla ships Keith had ever seen. Hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thousands; he couldn't tell. Either way, Voltron would've been hard pressed to survive, let alone his single lion. Every time he blinked, more appeared. 

"Shiro," Keith breathed, eyes trembling as the army raced toward him.

"Get _inside_ ," Shiro begged. "Keith, that is an _order_!"

_I'm going to die._

For an inkling of a second, Keith believed death was imminent, and not in the classic way his existential brain attempted to remind him once every Self-loathing Moon. This was the first time his morality felt pink and new, swaddled in true uncertainty. He was human, and those were ships that could kill him, especially if faced head on, alone. Maybe it was the sublime in their presence, the sheer enormity that paled in comparison to a single Zarkon. All impulses Keith had once prided himself with were rewired to worry about more than just his desire to fight and fly. Pidge was right. He couldn't fight them alone, but he also couldn't free his friends.

Why was he trying to problem solve when that was Shiro's job? Why was he so worried about everyone else? Why did he suddenly feel so worthless? So incapable?

 _Liability_ , it said. _You're good for one thing, and now you can't even do that._

"Move!" Pidge cried out, near-hysterical. "Shiro, make him _move_!"

The piercing ring of tearing metal blared through Shiro's feed. Keith hissed as he reached to jerk his helmet off to escape the noise, but there was an explosion to the right that stopped him mid-pull. The Black Lion lunged around the castle's corner with the kind of speed that defied its previously known capacity. The lion opened its impossibly large jaw, and Keith violently slammed back against his chair when it bit the Red Lion's neck. Keith freed the controls so that Shiro could race them toward the Red Lion's still-open hangar.

It wasn't until he was tossed inside did something occur to him.

The Red Lion hadn't tried to save him.

Keith's lion slid to a clumsy halt within its storage, and the Red Paladin could only lie there as he caught his breath, chest heaving while his eyes stung due to rare tears. Somehow, Shiro was able to seal the hangar, and the Red Paladin shakily undid the belts securing him in place, dropping gracelessly onto one of his cockpit's walls. He barely managed to catch himself, arms trembling.

Keith crawled onto his knees, but he soon wasn't alone. Rapid footsteps were coming closer, and there was the grunt of someone climbing through the lion's topsy-turvy interior. Shiro was inside, and he was sprinting.

"Keith!" Shiro yelled. He appeared in time to see Keith rubbing his temples. Shiro's hand was alive with its magenta glow as he knelt down in front of the other man, but he used his flesh hand to catch the side of Keith's jaw. Shiro's jowls were tense, eyes sharp as flint. "What happened?"

"I'm not sure," Keith said, enraged by his own admittance. He tore his helmet off and haphazardly tossed it to the side just in time for Hunk and Lance's yells to reach his headset. "I was _fine_ , and then I couldn't think straight. I couldn't focus. I couldn't connect with my lion. He didn't even move to protect me when…"

_When I thought I was going to die._

Both sat there in a fleeting silence, realizing. 

"We're down a lion," Keith continued, and he glanced up to see Shiro's eyes cast to the side, brimming with rapid-fire thoughts. Keith knew he was strategizing. "We can't make Voltron if my lion won't listen."

"We've got to get power to this place and wormhole out of here. Pidge and Hunk need to be up there with Allura and Coran, figuring out how to power the crystal. Lance and I can stave off some of the fleet, and you…" He trailed off and that touch along Keith's face slid down his neck, dropping off so that his arm could rest on his thigh. "Are you _sure_ the Red Lion won't listen to you? Can you clear your head and _try_? Keith, we need you out there."

Keith ground his molars to dust and cut his stare from Shiro. He sucked in a deep breath and then scrunched his nose as his convoluted thoughts created whirlpools. The intensity of the moment, that first true bite from the fruit of fear, told him he wanted one thing and one thing only.

That one thing had a job to do, but so did he.

"Come on!" Keith yelled and slammed his fists against the lion's wall. Shiro slid back and opened his mouth to reprimand Keith's methods, but he decided then wasn't the time. "Work for me! We're a team! We have always been a team, and right now, I really _need_ you!"

And for a fragment of a second, Keith wasn't sure if he was talking to the lion.

A bolt of electricity followed by the rush of a lion's roar raced up his spine, and suddenly, Keith's control panel sparked to life. With Shiro still inside, he bolted toward the steering and jerked the lion upright into a sitting position, panting through his oversaturated emotions. Even though the lion was working, Keith's expression didn't relax. He snatched up his helmet and yanked it on. He went to take a seat, but Shiro snagged his elbow.

The Black Paladin anchored Keith into the moment by tugging him toward his chest. Keith's eyes bore into Shiro's, unafraid and entirely unapologetic no matter how sorry he truly felt. Shiro stepped closer and snatched up the back of Keith's helmet. He gently pressed his forehead to Keith's and squeezed his eyes shut.

"You're doing great," he promised, teeth clamped. "We _are_ a team."

Whatever tension Keith felt before melted enough for him to patiently watch Shiro turn and stride away.

By the time Shiro's helmet was yanked on and his plan was presented to the team, Keith had fastened himself in his seat. A calm blanketed the other Paladins, and it was as if the earlier panic had never existed.

As it often happened, Shiro's plan of attack was successful. Keith and the Red Lion were able to aid in holding back wave after wave until Pidge and Hunk could supersede the fields that had knocked the ship's power off kilter. In hindsight, Keith knew it was one of their simpler escapes from capture, but it was the vermin in the walls that unnerved him. To Keith, this was an early onset termite infestation, an unapparent danger he needed to fumigate.

"And we have power!" Allura cheered, but her happiness didn't linger. "Return to the control room, Paladins. If we take on anymore fire, then the castle might not survive the wormhole. I think we could all live without another wormhole mishap."

Due to destroying his hangar to save Keith, Shiro was forced to park his Black Lion alongside the Red Lion. Both men ran from their lions' mouths, but Keith couldn't bring himself to look at Shiro. Not yet, anyway. Fortunately for him, he was able to pretend he was concentrating on racing toward the control room. Once seated along with the rest of their team, Keith still didn't meet anyone's gaze. He was teeming with a sense of humiliating failure. He'd let his team down.

"Good job, everyone," Shiro said, meaning every word of it.

Right before entering the wormhole, Keith leaned between his knees and cradled his face in his palms. His shoulders tensed, and he braced himself with his helmet caught between his feet.

Keith didn't notice the way Shiro's forlorn gaze drank him in, reading every distress signal the Red Paladin was pulsing free.


	3. 7

For reasons Keith couldn't quite figure out, no one thought to mention his mishap during the Galra encounter. The silence laid against him like spider webs, something he wanted to pick off his skin, but couldn't quite grasp. It was a weight that hung similar to a threaded sword swaying above his head, but there was nothing he could do about it aside from wait. _What_ he was waiting for was the real question, and as everyone settled into the post-panic haze, he didn't even know where to begin to find the answer.

Once they were out of reach from the horde, Castle Lion returned to its usual rhythm. Keith—too tired to bother with more hours on the training deck—found himself sprawled on one of the lounge's couches, back facing the room and eyes squared on the cushion. He was changed, arms naked in his Altean crafted muscle tee, and his hair was wildly disheveled from air drying after a cold shower. He'd attempted to wake himself up with the frigid soak, but in the end, he still felt like baked roadkill.

"We could play cards," Pidge suggested, breaching the silence even though she was distracted by her lap console. They'd been in space for barely a year, and Hunk and she could already read Altean. "When Hunk comes back with snacks someone should ask him where he put the deck."

Keith lifted a thumbs up, but he didn't say anything. He could feel Pidge's gaze concentrating on the center of his spine. It burned.

"Time to break out the Nunvill," Lance announced. He'd been watching Keith's unmoving form for approximately ten minutes before he became unsure of what to do. He stood with a stretch, and his bones popped from his ankles to his shoulders. "I'll be back. Don't party too hard without me."

The sliding doors opened with a purr and then shut with a lower pitch. Keith and Pidge nestled into their comfortable silence. Her fingers clacking across the keyboard continued for a hot minute before she came to a halt. Pidge cleared her throat.

"Let's trash the place."

Keith smiled to himself and shifted a little. "Lance comes back and we're strung out. It's been ten minutes. No one can figure out where we found the cocaine."

The doors reopened, and Pidge swiftly returned to typing. "Hey, Shiro."

"Hey, Pidge," he said, voice clean and so friendly Keith had to remind himself not to turn toward the man. "Keith."

A set of nimble fingers combed through his tousled hair, the very tips creating a circular path around the shell of his ear. They stopped at the patch of skin beneath his earlobe, finding the the start of his soft jawline, and drifted away like a dispersion of dust. The gentleness was seconded to the same hand grabbing his shoulder and firmly squeezing. It was one pulse of pressure, but it grabbed Keith's double vision and centered it. He rolled onto his back.

"How's your head doing?" Shiro asked.

Keith noted the loaded question, but he didn't chomp the bait. "Better than before."

Lance returned with Hunk. Nunvill and snacks in hand, Keith and the rest had long since adjusted to the 'acquired' aspect of Nunvill's taste. In particular, Lance could tolerate it better than the rest of them, but Keith and Pidge came in for a close second. Hunk pretended to sip it, and Shiro tended to prefer a clear head, but he occasionally found reason to indulge. It was apparently such an occasion because Shiro took the cup Lance offered him. Allura was in bed, Coran was hiding from the Youth Club, and Keith had a feeling that loosened the pressure valve for Shiro. He wasn't being watched.

Hunk found his handmade deck of cards. The five of them flopped down on the floor. Leaned against the front of couches and stuffing their faces with an alien interpretation of pizza, things almost felt normal. Again, no one acknowledged Keith's disconnection from the Red Lion. It was hours of hiding their hands, practicing poker faces and Lance violently pressing his lips into a thin line whenever he was one-upped by Shiro, Keith, and especially, Pidge. Predictably, her game was unstoppable.

"You're dealing with two people who used to play cards every weekend," Shiro explained and looked to Keith. Keith didn't hide his smug smile. "And possibly a card counter."

"I plead the fifth," Pidge parried. Her grin was evidence enough.

"I've been thinking about Earth," Lance suddenly said, breaking through the lightheartedness and in search of conversation. Everyone's expressions softened and the game became less important. "What I miss most about it, but not like—not family. I don't mean those kinds of things. Just the everyday things."

"Music," Keith said without missing a beat, and the group groaned in unison.

"I'd cut off my hand for music," Hunk mumbled and then glanced up at Shiro who sharply arched an eyebrow. "Sorry, Shiro."

"No offense taken," he said, clearly offended.

Shiro's expression drifted as he thought back on Earth. "I was barely there long enough to do anything I wanted while imprisoned, but I remember missing coffee."

Keith thumbed through his cards. "Your face when you had it at our… the house… the one morning you spent there."

Gracefully, Shiro overlooked the fumble. "If I'd known we weren't coming back after we found the Blue Lion, then I would have brought along the bag."

"Movie theaters," Hunk said and the rest bobbed their heads like toys.

Lance sighed and fell onto his back. Hunk caught his Nunvill glass. "My video games."

"That's a good one," Pidge said, and she gestured at them with her glass, face tinted pink due to it being her third. "Chinese takeout."

They yelled—a series of 'oh my gods' and 'drown me in soy sauce.' Lance and Hunk slammed their palms against the floor and began shouting out the names of their favorite Americanized Chinese food; crab rangoon, chicken and broccoli, greasy lo mein and pork fried rice drenched in sweet and sour sauce. While they reminisced on their favorite places to grab junk food during their free time at the Garrison, Shiro nudged Keith's side.

"It was _ours_."

Keith's eyes didn't shift to Shiro, but Shiro wasn't looking at him. He clenched the glass a little tighter and considered the power of past tense. Would it no longer be home when they returned to Earth? Or was Shiro just that certain they'd never see the day when they could all live on Earth as normal humans? He supposed they were so far removed from normalcy that it was inevitable life could never be exactly the same again, but where was the hope? The anticipation for more than _this_?

 _There's nothing after this_ , it whispered. _You are fate's organ meat. The filler from a factory that's sole job is to make life taste good. An unseen prospect for the slaughterhouse and the leftovers hosed down the drain. Don't mistake a bullet between the eyes for an animal sacrifice. There will be no reverence. No one will remember your name. You don't even know whose place you took._

"It was," Keith repeated and then leaned forward to pour himself more to drink.

It _was._

They disbanded for bed after deciding they were too tired to mourn Earth any longer. All wobbly, they drifted to their residential wing and one-by-one disappeared into their greyscale bedrooms.

Keith waved goodnight to Lance and Shiro. They were across the hall from him and wall-mates, which Shiro had alluded to being an experience. From what Keith had gathered, Lance's singing didn't have a preference for an audience, and was in fact, quite sporadic. Shiro never seemed too bothered by it, but once or twice Keith had heard the gentle knocking of Shiro politely asking Lance to ' _shut up_.'

"Sweet dreams," Lance managed and nearly tripped over his own feet.

"Try not to kill yourself," Keith said, meaning it.

Lance said something inaudible, but when Keith turned to Shiro, Shiro didn't say anything. Simply, he winked at Keith and walked through his bedroom door.

Keith's chest clenched. He reminded himself to breathe.

Eventually inside his room with fifteen percent lung function, Keith paused in the center while his booze-enhanced anxiety weighed him down. Keith shoved his fingers through his hair and scanned the door. It reverberated an aura like coaxing fingers, tempting him to knock on Shiro's door so they could clear the air. Keith wasn't even sure if there was even air to clear. Their begonias were wilted and grey, their drying rivers patterned with fish who could only show underbellies, and admittedly, Keith couldn't remember the last time he'd lied down on grass that didn't needle through his clothes.

But wasn't that the thing? _Remembering._

He was beginning to learn that love, even when wholesomely appreciated, was nearly impossible to hold onto. Keith's initial love for Shiro had been a series of clinging and clawing, leaving behind lunar indentions and the silent begging that Shiro wouldn't leave him, too. Dead parents, fleeting friends, and the kind of disposition that made a hug feel like being hurdled off a bluff.

Keith was a pilot, but goddamn if he wasn't afraid of falling.

_He doesn't want to talk about this with you._

The Nunvill impaired his better judgement, but Keith knew he would've eventually devoured those splinters of self-control, inebriated or not. He inelegantly spun toward the door and smacked the control button. Across the hallway was Shiro's closed door, and he swallowed a deep breath only to march forward. His brain was catapulting a million miles per hour, but he was sure he'd figure out what to say once in Shiro's room. If he got that far.

Keith lifted his hand, clenched his fist, and he squeezed his eyes shut with a piercing inhale. He briskly struck his knuckles against the metal. It took a minute, but eventually, the door slid open to reveal Shiro standing in a pair of soft sleep pants and nothing else. Keith wasn't sure how to react to the endless plains that made up Shiro's six-pack, but for some reason, Manifest Destiny came to mind. He decided God must have been on an inspiration binger when he took the chisel and hammer to Shiro's block of marble, and Keith wondered how he'd once been lucky enough to call that body Home.

Shiro pressed his hand to the doorframe. He leaned forward and looked both ways down the hall as if attempting to sense oncoming danger. "Is everything okay?"

"Can I talk to you?"

Shiro stared down at Keith, and Keith noted the soft, perceptive tremble in his gaze. He stepped to the side to allow Keith into the room and shut the door behind them. Shiro gave Keith the floor and sat down on his bed with a gentle exhale. His hands hung between his knees, and he watched Keith drift into the bedroom with a pensive gaze, eyes meaningfully grazing over Shiro and then back to the floor.

Keith could feel the silence lasting too long, but when Shiro shifted as if prepared to speak, his drunken brain caught hold of his mouth. "I know you won't tell me if you're disappointed in me, but I tried. I didn't just stop because I couldn't do it. I tried because I've always been able to do it."

It took Shiro a moment to realize what Keith meant, and then it sank in. His fingers unclenched and he didn't miss a beat.

"Of course you did. Don't be upset…"

_Don't be upset. Don't be upset. Don't be upset._

_Don't be upset. Don't be upset. Don't be upset._

_Don't be upset. Don't be upset. Don't be upset._

_Don't be upset. Don't be upset. Don't be upset._

_Don't be upset. Don't be upset. Don't be upset._

"Don't tell me how to feel," he said, and as always, Keith was too sharp. He pressed his palm to his mouth and tried again. "I'm upset. I can't stop being upset."

"You did exactly what you could. I don't make impossible demands, Keith. All I asked was for you to get to safety. You physically couldn't, and I stepped in."

"Which was my fault."

Quiet scattered between them. Shiro realized this wasn't a fight he could win. This was because Keith was fighting himself, not Shiro, and it didn't take a philosopher to recognize the Red Paladin had handcuffed Shiro so that he could only watch him flog himself. Shiro had always fought to be the whipping boy, but Keith wasn't having it.

"Do you know what could have caused the malfunction?" he asked, attempting to pander to Keith and also reinstate the fact that it was a technical error, not a human one. "Did something else happen?"

Keith stammered a little. He blamed the Nunvill. "No. I told you exactly what happened. The Red Lion stopped listening to me. I couldn't get the controls to react. He didn't even try to save me."

"But the Black Lion did."

This startled Keith, and his arms tightened. The words were sobering, effective in whatever way Shiro had intended to use them. Shiro turned his elbows into supports and tilted his head back, lulling it to the side as he attempted to gather his thoughts. He plucked them like berries and stained his expression in the process. Keith recognized that face. It was the same one he'd worn when he told him he'd been assigned to the Kerberos Mission. He still had nightmares about that day. The fight.

Keith answered.

"What's that supposed to mean? You were upset and the Black Lion did what you wanted it to do. You knew that if they took me, then we wouldn't be able to form Voltron."

"Will you come here?" Shiro asked, words an invitation but not obligatory. He was saddened, the corners of his mouth turned down and eyes shut as he read through his canon of Rights and Wrongs.

Keith hesitated on principle. He stepped forward, and his concern was almost sobering, but he was still weak in step. Keith's confident air was ensnared by his inability to say exactly what was bothering him. For some reason, he didn't know why it was so hard to ask that one question.

_Do you still love me?_

This was clearly not about love, though.

"Listen to me," Shiro started, words still soft as he reached for Keith's wrist. He righted his back so that he could bring Keith between his knees. "Things are going to change."

"What do you mean _change_?"

Shiro didn't say anything, but he wordlessly pressed his forehead to Keith's navel. Keith reached to card his fingers through what he could of Shiro's hair, and he saw the tightening of muscles beneath the man's skin. His shoulders knotted and unknotted as he tried to level out his stress, but they never quite relaxed. Keith dragged strands of white between two fingers, pulling them through like stretched pasta. His free hand reached and smoothed along the back of Shiro's neck, and Keith realized his arms were shaking. They hadn't touched like this in over a year, and while he felt safe as ever, he was all nerves.

"It doesn't matter right now," Shiro said, words muffled by Keith's shirt. "But we have to keep a cool head when it does happen, and I need you to keep being strong. You're so strong, Keith."

It wasn't like Shiro to speak in riddles, but he was still _speaking_. Keith didn't want to hinder the moment with his need for conciseness.

"I'm strong because of you," he said.

"If you really believe that, then I've let you down."

Feeling bold, Keith lifted his knee to set it down on the mattress beside Shiro's thigh, and he shifted himself so that he could climb onto his lap. Shiro caught the underneath of Keith's thighs and leaned back to bring him closer with a quick tug. Where he once would've laughed at the tug, Keith leaned down and pressed his face into the crook of Shiro's throat, his arms wreathing his neck.

"You've never let me down, Shiro."

There was something about Shiro's smile that illuminated from his whole body, and Keith didn't have to see the man's face to know when it happened. Shiro turned his head and pressed his mouth to Keith's temple, masking a noncommittal kiss.

Sighing to himself, Keith lazily dragged his hand down Shiro's bicep, eyelids becoming heavy when Shiro found his wrist and curved his fingers along the tender underside of his forearm. Shiro traced his blue vein, discovered the love line along Keith's palm, and after contemplation, carefully knitted their fingers together.

Keith shifted back, and his navel grew hot. It was like the sun all over again, spilling onto him and reminding him that he was alive and well. He reached up and caught both sides of Shiro's face, and Shiro tilted into the touch before he kissed Keith's fingertips one at a time. It was as if each deserved just as much consideration as the one before, and Keith's breathing staggered when the corner of Shiro's mouth pulled upward, a tiny quirk but vivid in meaning.

The temperate kisses were all Keith needed to bring Shiro's face closer to his. His mouth shifted onto the other's—lips unhurriedly melding with the weakest _pop_ —and Keith's thumbs slid along Shiro's angular jawline when the Black Paladin grabbed him up by his waist. Keith had assumed kissing Shiro might be clumsy, but he realized that wasn't possible when it was all he'd thought about for months.

"I've missed you," Keith breathed.

Shiro tangled his fingers into Keith's hair and guided him closer, deepening the kiss and leaning forward so that Keith's balance was entirely dependent on his hold. Their breathing hitched in time, and Keith bit back a groan when Shiro's hips rolled upward, the motion familiar beneath him and sending heat racing through his limbs. Keith met him halfway the next time, hips grinding downward. It was like having the breath knocked out of him again and again, but once he found the motion, he couldn't bring himself to stop. It felt right, and Keith hadn't felt right in a long time.

Shiro's breathing thickened and soon it matched Keith's, escalating when Keith brushed a hand down his sculpted chest and settled it on his naked hip. With the slightest shoulder shift, Shiro used his decisive tongue to prompt Keith's lips apart, and Keith didn't resist. He welcomed Shiro's tongue and rocked forward when it swiped along his front teeth.

To keep them upright, Shiro grasped onto Keith's ass with both hands and tugged him closer. It was aggressive, a grunt escorting the motion. Keith's brain fogged over with memories of how else Shiro had once used that same series of movements, and his marrow ached from a want that seemed more like a need. Keith caught onto Shiro's shoulders and pushed him onto his back, and he toppled with him. They hit the mattress with a soft thud, but Shiro didn't stop the hungry kissing, hands beginning to travel. Hands beginning to _grab_.

"Wait," Shiro whispered into their heavy panting, suddenly retracting. "Wait, baby."

_Baby._

Keith retracted, and he glanced up in surprise. He dropped his hands from Shiro's body and was suddenly rolled over onto his side. Shiro lined up behind him in the same position. They seamlessly meshed together, and Shiro planted a hand on his stomach, forcing Keith's navel to dip. Shiro nuzzled into Keith's hair, and while he pushed upward beneath his shirt, he didn't reach to entirely remove it. Rather, he flattened his hand and pulled Keith's spine to his chest to hold him in place.

"Human contact," Shiro said, words thick as he tried to keep them matter-of-fact. "I've gone almost two years without earthly human contact."

Keith suddenly shut his eyes, brow furrowed. “I’ve been here the whole time, Shiro.”

“I know you have."

Shiro stroked his thumb along the underneath of Keith’s pectoral, and Keith couldn’t help but to melt into the mattress with every thoughtless caress. Shiro noticed, but he didn’t indulge beyond that. He settled down onto the pillow instead and reached down for the blanket at the end of the bed. Keith caught the cues that they wouldn’t be doing more beyond that kiss, and he attempted to think of things that could dull the ache.

They laid there, Keith’s leg slowly moving back so that he could further entangle their limbs, and he began to count Shiro’s breaths like sheep. Deep and heavy, the man’s body was difficult not to fall in sync with, and he found immense comfort in the body heat of someone else. His someone else.


	4. 9

There was the _idea_ that the Paladins were disciplined soldiers, and then there was the _fact_ no one wanted to fix Shiro's hangar simply because no one wanted to fix Shiro's hangar.

Parked on a peaceful planet in the space equivalent to 'Bumfuck Nowhere,' Keith found himself standing within the backdrop of Coran and Pidge's discernment. He was holding a spiked juice box and attempting to breathe in the atmosphere that was similar enough to Earth's to be tolerable for long periods of time. He couldn't remember the last time he'd stood on a planet without his helmet. There was something about the familiarity that made him even more homesick, and Keith was annoyed he couldn't enjoy himself.

But that was the prevailing theme of the week. After spending the night in Shiro's room, they'd morphed it into a wordless routine. Keith would wait until everyone else went to bed, and when he was certain the other Paladins were soundly in their beds, he let himself into Shiro's room. On some level, it was close enough to what he'd had on Earth that he knew he should be satisfied, but he couldn't let himself have it. The silence was distance, and the distance was weight.

Keith couldn't breathe.

"You _destroyed_ the thing," Pidge observed and then glanced over her shoulder, squinting at Shiro who immediately rose his palms in apology. "It's like…"

"A three-hundred-ton robotic lion clawed through?" Hunk asked. He gestured at the violent claw marks, and Lance loud laughed.

Pidge redirected her squint. Hunk only smiled, clearly satisfied with himself. She tossed a tool at him, and Hunk reflexively caught the alien crowbar before inspecting it, then distracted.

Shiro reached for Keith's juice box, and by habit of sharing water bottles, Keith handed it over. He realized what he'd done and turned to inform Shiro that he was about to drink a squackle berry and Nunvill cocktail, but as soon as he opened his mouth, Shiro sucked back a mouthful.

His shoulders lifted toward the sky, and he shivered. Keith groaned when Shiro turned his head and clenched his fist. He swallowed the whole gulp in one go, and Keith watched his eyes shake through his quick recovery time. Carefully, Keith peeled the juice box from Shiro's tense grip and went back to sipping it like water. Keith equated his Nunvill tolerance to Hunk and Pidge's Altean literacy.

"Warn me next time," Shiro said, wiping the corner of his mouth. He blinked and sighed. "It's _noon_ , and we're vulnerable. Try not to drink during the day."

"We don't know what time it is on Earth."

A stare off ensued.

Shiro crossed his arms over his chest.

"Yes, sir," Keith relented.

His words were sincere but his expression was anything but that as he continued to finish off his drink. Shriveled and beyond embalming, Keith tossed the pouch into the incinerator and returned to Shiro's side. They exchanged a quick glance, and when they looked away from one another, both failed to hide a smile.

Pidge had the prognosis a minute later.

She dragged her fingers down her face and flopped back. "This is going to take a while."

"We might as well make the most of it," Shiro said and he uncrossed his arms. "This planet is untouched by the Galra. Let's hope it stays that way while we're here."

"Good luck with _that_ ," Coran joked, twiddling the end of his mustache.

No one else found it funny.

"Right, so here's what we should do," Shiro continued, and he strode in front of the crew, back facing them as he stared over the planet's tropical expanse. "I want to scout the area. It's been 10,000 years, and I don't think we should put all of our stock into Castle Lion's technology. We already couldn't detect the Galra fleets, so I want to make sure we're actually alone out here."

Shiro stepped onto coiled indigo grass, and Keith watched it immediately die beneath his boot. Pidge had explained her theory as to why all of the leaves were a sleepy blue velvet, but Keith had already filed it into the trash. The grass clashed violently with the planet's six purple suns, and when the light touched Shiro's grey, his hair took on a neon blue cast that was unnervingly artificial. When he looked over his shoulders, his skin shone blue as well, and Keith was certain he could see his veins glowing like worms.

"That looks safe," Lance said, acknowledging Shiro's appearance when no one else would. "Can't wait for my inevitable prostate cancer."

"Check out that bioluminescence," Pidge muttered. 

"Suit up," Shiro ordered, being the only one in his gear. He weakly smiled. "We're going on a field trip."

The group returned to the hangar dressed, but without helmets. They trickled outside one at a time, and Keith being the group's King No Fun XII was the last to enter the wilderness. Lance removed one of his gloves just so that he could find novelty in his skin, but he wasn't the only one.

"This is fascinating," Pidge said, and she raised her hand to a sun only to yelp.

Her skin was see through, practically translucent to the point of making her bones visible. It was the reason Keith finally tugged off his glove, too.

_Wait._

He cleared his throat when he looked at his skin. Everyone else was glowing like the surrounding plant life, but his skin was a confused lavender intermingling with the softest hints of blue. Keith furrowed his brow and slowly exhaled as he lifted his hand toward the sun. It didn't show as translucent. In fact, the purple intensified and his arm began to radiate sharp pain.

"Whoa," Hunk muttered. "Why does Keith look like a grape?"

Pidge dropped her arm and finally turned along with everyone else. She scurried to his side and grappled for his wrist to inspect the limb. Uncomfortable with contact, Keith stepped back only to look up at Shiro who, aside from the single wrinkle across his forehead, was unreadable. Keith cleared his throat, and he glanced down at Pidge.

"Do you feel weird?" Pidge asked, shaking his arm. "Is it _weird_?"

"No," Keith lied and jerked his arm back before tugging his glove back on. "It's probably because I have Nunvill in my system."

"You were drinking?" Lance teased and pursed his lips too tightly. He shot spittle over the next words. "Keith, I can't believe you—The Keith—were drinking on the job."

"I'm going to hit you," Keith muttered and walked toward Lance.

"Enough," Shiro snapped, and like a dog whistle, the two looked away from one another and followed his unspoken command. _Behave._ "If you start feeling strange, then tell us, Keith. Otherwise, let's get going."

They meandered through the foreign terrain with wide eyes and clenched Bayards. Keith knew the field trip was an excuse for them to leave the ship and stretch their legs. It made no sense to leave behind their lions and not perform aerial surveillance. Not to mention, their helmets were carelessly being carted beneath their arms, meaning a lack of immediate communication with the castle.

"Check out that water," Lance said after a span of silent walking. He pointed toward a small waterfall guarded by wide leaves. Its rocks and water were stained purple, and it gushed pink, multifaceted crystals that collected along the surrounding shore. Keith watched as they dissolved like wet sugar. "Too bad we can't take those back to Earth and get rich. Imagine what people would pay to wear those."

"Imagine what the government would pay for a sample," Pidge corrected and stepped closer so that she could lean over the water. She patted herself, looking for something. She unveiled a pen. Pidge lifted it for everyone to see and dropped it into the water. On contact, it exploded into a grey miasma, and Pidge yelled before scampering back. She climbed up Shiro's side who gathered her up and leaned back in awe. " _What_?"

"So I guess we don't want to drink the water," Keith said, voice terse.

Pressure was growing inside his sinuses, and his breathing was evaporating, becoming shallow. While everyone else seemed relatively sweat free, he could feel the rainfall making its way down his lower back, streaking cramped thighs. Keith milled his teeth when the pain bubbled. He reached for the side of his head and staggered backward only to notice his nostrils felt clogged and wet. With a huff, Keith caught his footing and sharply inhaled, but air made him wince. His lungs were dying coals that shone red with each breath, and his eyes felt salted.

Hunk grunted and tugged on his helmet so that he wouldn't have to carry it anymore. "You guys, I don't think there's anything out here. Can we go back now? My feet are killing me."

Lance and Pidge were ready to ignore Hunk for more exploration. Lance opened his mouth, but when his gaze flickered toward Keith, he stopped what he was doing and sucked in a quick breath.

"Keith?" Lance asked, and that was all it took to get Shiro's attention. "Keith!"

Shiro darted in front of Keith. He cupped both sides of Keith's face, leaning down to examine the discoloration. His expression went from stoic concern to raw fear, and when Shiro brought back his hands, Keith could see the blood drenching his hands. The Black Paladin stared at the blood, and he stopped short with pithy breaths, widening his eyes as a harrowing silence erupted from him.

Keith realized Shiro was entering an episode.

He cautiously reached for Shiro's wrists. The man didn't react beyond clenching his eyes shut and hissing.

Blood dribbling from Keith's nose, eyes and ears, he sputtered through the metallic taste, staying firm on his feet. "We need to get back to the ship."

He managed to tug on his helmet, eyes a golden glow as he looked toward the vessel that stood miles away. Keith sneered when blue swiped across his visor due to him properly adjusting it with soiled hands. He spat out blood, thinking it was the runoff from his nose, but Keith soon realized the blood was climbing his throat, layering his tongue like an oil spill. He was going to drown if he didn't immediately return to the castle. This time he had no choice but to react.

The other three stared at their frozen leader. Shiro suddenly hit his knees, taking Keith down to a kneeled position. Keith reached for Shiro's jaw and adjusted his face so they could look at one another.

"Shiro," he snapped, and hid his panic. "Shiro, you're okay..."

Shiro inhaled hard, fighting his mind.

"I'm right here."

Allura's voice sparked over the headset. "What's going _on_ out there?"

Keith watched Shiro's prosthetic arm come to life, glowing a dangerous blue that forced Keith to free the man for safety reasons. His chest spasmed, and he mustered up the will power to speak.

"We need a ship. There's something wrong with the atmosphere, and Shiro isn't doing well. Get Coran out here _now_."

Allura remained mostly calm, but Keith could hear the waver in her voice. The idea of Shiro being incapacitated didn't sit well with anyone. "I'm tracking you now, Keith. Help is on its way."

Keith's eyes darted from left to right, drinking in the enclosing trees and wide river. He recognized a serious error in their plans and his heart knocked against his ribs. Keith looked to Pidge who was holding tight to Hunk's arm as she watched Shiro rasp. He needed to regroup them. Keith desperately attempted to channel his center, but his center was literally rotting itself inside out. He was becoming an overripe peach, and if someone picked him up, then he was sure his skin would glide off.

"Where was the last clearing?" he snapped, incapable of being as soothing as Shiro but putting in the effort to be level. "There's nowhere to land the ship."

Lance was the first to come to, and he muttered a sharp 'fuck' that surprised everyone. Lance darted to Keith's side, and he hoisted Shiro's flesh arm over his shoulders. Keith, braving what others were viewing as a storm, grasped onto Shiro's glowing robotic arm and tugged it over his shoulders. With only his adrenaline, Keith helped Lance guide Shiro's quivering form toward an open field of climbing blue weeds that sparkled like sapphires. The five-minute walk was an acid bath for Keith's feet.

" _Hunk_." Keith wheezed and tried not to cough, but he gagged.

Losing his internal fight, Keith hacked blood so hard it felt like a sucker punch, and he could no longer support his half of Shiro's weight. He hit his knees and bent over. Blood oozed from his mouth like a stream of honey, and his forearms slammed against the ground. Keith convulsed.

Keith desperately tried not to scream. As second-in-command, it was his job to hold it together when Shiro was absent, but his muscles were unfurling like the end of a worn shoelace. Keith pressed his helmeted head against the ground, and with his final threads of energy, screamed as his limbs twitched through their curdling.

"There's Coran!" Hunk shouted, and he reached down to effortlessly lug Keith over his shoulder.

The Red Paladin blinked slowly as his body's functions sluggishly ticked backward. Hunk jostled him, jogging to the descending spacecraft. Through the bloody smears along his visor, Keith could see Pidge inspecting Shiro, attempting to talk him into the present. Keith reached toward Shiro as he swayed from side-to-side, blinking past the very gore that'd brushed his chest an entirely different color. The warping buzz that signaled the disappearance of the ship's windshield distracted him.

He was placed into the passenger seat.

Coran's startled cry kept Keith vaguely conscious, but his clotting blood was attempting to asphyxiate him. Throughout the worming black specks and warped light, Keith decided right then he didn't want to die. He kept facing the option head on, but for the first time, he truly understood what it meant to want to live.

Coran darted around Keith, searching for a pulse. "I thought _Shiro_ was…"

"We can carry Shiro to the castle," Lance called out, voice stern. He was standing with Shiro's stunned form still leaned against him, but his shoulders were righted, face morose. "Get Keith to the infirmary."

"Right! Away we go! Nice and speedy, Keith…"

Coran returned to his pilot's chair with inappropriate pep, but when the windshield shut around them, Keith's blue blood shifted to a heinous red that made the Altean's guts roil. Coran's neck beaded with sweat as his nausea was ensnared by the sweet metallic stench. He glanced over the young Paladin's bloody chest before he redefined the word 'speedy.'

_Don't be upset._

Darkness sank Keith like a bog.

Moments slipped through him like wind dancing between blades of wheat, and he could only sway however the gusts willed him. There was the distraught cry from Allura when Coran hoisted Keith from the ship and hurried him toward the infirmary, which was followed by the tentative seconds when Allura reached and pulled off his helmet. Greeted by a face distorted from coagulating blood, Allura tossed the helmet in frustration. She pushed the levitating gurney toward the healing cell.

_No tears, Princess. We'll fix him right up._

_I said it was safe for humans. It was my call, Coran. If Shiro sees what I've done…_

_Have you considered that maybe…_

He watched the world through the fringes of his eyelashes.

They prepared to submerge him in the tank, removing his bloodied armor one piece at a time, but it wasn't quick enough to avoid oncoming steps from the connected corridor. The other Paladins appeared in the doorway, and Coran left Keith's side to coral them to a safe distance. Everyone understood the safety precaution except Shiro who'd come to, eyes wide but hands still quaking. He didn't hear Coran's protest when he shoved shoulder-to-shoulder past the alien.

Upon seeing Keith, Shiro slammed his fists against the gurney's surface. The same hands steadied and gently moved forward to cradle the sides of Keith's head as if he were a newborn. He pressed his forehead to Keith's, entirely unaware of the blood staining his bangs, and he clenched his teeth. Shiro sharply inhaled through them and petted along Keith's hair. Enraged with himself and only himself, his nose pressed firm to his temple and thumbs swiped along Keith's cheekbones.

"I did this."

_No._

Allura cut into Shiro's melodrama. "Shiro, either help me or move. He's going to die."

Shiro lunged like a rabid dog until the word 'die' appeared between them.

"I'm helping," Shiro said, and he yanked his glove off with his teeth. 

"He's going to die?" Lance asked, words tight with fear.

"No," Shiro snapped and finished stripping the Red Paladin. He repositioned Keith onto the machine's guide and Allura secured him. The tank dragged him into an upward position and shut before filling with liquid, starting at his feet. "He's _not_ going to die."

This promise rang through everyone in the room, and when Keith was secured inside the healing tank, Shiro pressed his forehead against the glass. Eyes boring into Keith's face, he tightened his bionic fist, relaxed it and pushed away toward the other Paladins.

"Allura," he started, suddenly calm. "What happened?"

She nervously skirted her gaze toward the others, and Coran slid his finger along his throat in warning. Shiro saw, but only Allura and he did. His expression remained neutral. He realized whatever happened must be serious to be classified information for everyone except him. He looked back to Keith, and the liquid was ebbing the blood from his features. That said, he still looked tattered, as if he'd been minced in a pileup on the freeway. Shiro cleared the mournful lump from his throat.

"Let's change and meet in the lounge," Shiro said.

Lance subverted the order by stepping forward. "Are you not going to tell us what happened? One of our teammates is almost dead. An atmosphere took him out quicker than a Galra horde, and you're telling us to _change_ and go to the _lounge_?"

Hunk reached for Lance's shoulder and pulled him back. "Don't do it, man. Just listen to Shiro. He always tells us what's going on. We need to cool it right now."

The Blue Paladin fought the urge to spit on that. His eyes shifted toward Keith, and he clenched his chest before jerking back and heading down the hallway. Hunk followed, but Pidge stood with her feet firmly planted. She rolled her jaw and began stepping backward.

"They're going to figure it out," she warned, non-threatening and in support of Shiro's respectability. "I did on the way here, and they're not far behind us. This planet is peaceful for a reason, isn't it?"

The words lingered like a premonition.

Allura muttered Pidge's name when she turned over her shoulder and strode after her teammates. Shiro softened his hardened features and returned to Keith's tank. He dragged his Galra hand down the center and rubbed the back of his neck. Coran cleared his throat and took a seat, crossing his legs, but no one spoke for a long moment.

"This doesn't change anything," Shiro attempted, but Allura cut in.

"It changes plenty of things," she insisted and stepped beside Shiro. They were both caked in blood and trying not to pay attention to Keith's dangerously slow vitals ticking away on the holographic screen. "We have a Galra hybrid on our ship. He's a Paladin. If they find out…"

Shiro couldn't even begin to process Keith as Galran.

He _refused_.

"Who's _they_?" Shiro sharply asked. "The Galra Empire or my team?"

Allura tore her gaze away from Keith, and she shook her head. She hugged herself and drifted. "I'm not sure."

"We _love_ Keith," Shiro insisted.

" _You_ love Keith," she countered, but Shiro took the bullet with dignity. " _We_ do love him, but you _love_ him, and that is dangerous, Shiro."

His shoulders dropped, and again, that controlled anger was festering along his abdominal walls like algae. "I don't entertain it."

"But _he_ does. He fought Zarkon to get you back."

"For the team…"

"Your lion destroyed the hangar…"

Shiro stood his ground. "For the _team_ …"

"He called us and said _you_ were in danger when _he_ was dying!" Allura slammed her hands against the gurney and then kicked it. Coran didn't flinch when it soared six inches past him and crashed against the wall, destroyed on spot. She strode back to Shiro and stabbed her finger against his chest. "Deal with this! That is an order from _me_. I won't have our best fighter die for _this_."

Shiro's eyes widened in panic. "I _can't_ …"

"I let go of my father for you! For all of you! For the universe!"

Allura's nose wrinkled as she strained against potential tears, and she whipped around, making a beeline for the exit. Coran said nothing when he stood to follow her, but he nodded at Shiro with a sympathetic gaze. Their steps grew distant, eventually swept away by the castle's labyrinth.

Shiro recognized the unspoken sentence there: At least Keith will live.

The Black Paladin slowly lowered himself onto the floor in front of the tank. He gazed up at the man he called his teammate. 'Teammate' was a diluted title, serving as an injustice to what he recognized Keith as, but Shiro knew he could never expose himself to the reality of the situation. Leader above all else, he flayed his own back with every thought of indulging their natural inclination for one another.

That knee-jerk reaction to take Keith and run terrified him more than any Galra blood that coursed through his partner's veins.

Shiro leaned back onto a palm, a single knee bent while the other laid long in front of him. He tilted his head back and pieced together their history like colored glass, creating a masterpiece he'd once prepared himself to look through for the rest of his life. His mouth twitched into a frown, and he seized that very stained glass window. He swung it.

Again and again and again.

It shattered around him, blades raining on them both.

Shiro understood there was no recovering from what he was about to do to the both of them. He had no other options, especially now.

After a moment of meditative silence, he stood and drank in Keith's form with a final look of longing. It curled in front of his heart like burning paper, and he turned over his shoulder to tend to his team. The words from the night before he left for Kerberos stained his skin like iodine.

_A year isn't that long._

_You say that because you'll actually be doing something._

_You're going to do great things while I'm gone._

_But when you come back, you'll still be the hero._

_Is loving a hero going to be hard for you?_

_Why would it be?_

Shiro turned the corner when his helmet's headpiece beeped and a red light flashed across its visor. He tugged the helmet on, touched the side and continued down the empty hallway. His eyes cast to the ground.

"It's Shiro."

The throaty voice dispensed from the receiver. "An update, 117-9875."


	5. 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also titled: This could be a drinking game where every single time Shiro is full of shit you take a shot.
> 
> Also: NSFW.

His dreams were full of broken angles, filaments of memories he'd retired to the bottom of a frozen-over lake.

Keith's adolescent miles stretched out before him in his deep sleep. There were certain images he understood to be impossible; his mother's face, the Pepto-Bismol carpet in a bathroom his dream consciousness described as his childhood home's, and then the musky afterthoughts of Chanel's Coco clinging to a stranger's neck. Small reflections from a babyhood he had no recollection of.

Fast-forward.

It's eighteen years later, and he's screaming at one of his commanding officers in a Garrison classroom. Keith can see himself mouth words, slam his fists in tantrum, but there's no sound. His throat tears, and his nails leave behind half-moon indentions in his palms. Eventually, he crumples over the edge of a desk as he lurches with fingers in his hair.

_It couldn't have been a pilot error._

The officer says he understands Shiro and he were 'close.'

Keith hates the word and how it only skims the surface, undermines them with every syllable. He wants to tell the officer about how Shiro fucked him in the flight simulator until his shoulders were slick and breathing seemed optional. He wants to show him the knots Shiro could tie and demonstrate how their anti-gravity routines perfected his tolerance for sucking cock while hanging upside down. He wants to lay it out for the man, send him a videotape of the moment when Shiro said 'I love you,' and how after gentle hesitation, he said it back.

On the edge of a bluff, feet dangling over a two-hundred-foot drop. Until Keith met Shiro, he'd never been afraid to fall.

A sunset.

There was a sunset. The sky was on fire.

 _Have you ever been burnt alive_? he wants to ask the officer. _Because I am burnt nerve endings, and soon, I will feel nothing. There will be nothing left. You've taken what's left._

He grabs the computer hiding every ounce of information they won't give him, and he throws it at the officer with the kind of strength that terrifies even him. Promptly, Keith is dragged out by his armpits; kicking, screaming and soon muscling back tears because Shiro is dead, and there's nothing he can do. They sedate him, and when he wakes up, he's expelled.

Hopelessness; Keith knows hopelessness.

_Shiro._

Beneath his feet sits black water. Calm and unbothered, Keith steps across it and appreciates the nothingness after that scene in the Garrison. He is alone, no longer seeing himself, but he still can't hear. He tries to recall the science of sound, but he's forgotten it. Instead, he walks forward, arms swaying at his hips.

His foot sinks with a splash, and Keith steadies himself as the water ripples toward nothing. He grunts, but before he can fully balance himself, he sees that his hands are discolored. Keith opens his palms and holds them up to the sterile white light bleeding from overhead, and he realizes they're purple. Purple intermingling with his peachy flesh tone, but the fruit is disappearing.

His feet give out beneath him, and with a scream, Keith grapples for the sky before descending into murkiness.

Down there, he meets a man with yellow eyes.

_I can't go with you._

Keith woke up three days and several fever dreams later.

The convalescence chamber slid open with a hum, and while he knew he was awake, Keith didn't immediately open his eyes. There was a moment of coming to grips, the return of his orbit that'd been far-flung and disoriented by death's impact.

Keith suddenly inhaled hard, lids pried wide, because _he was alive._

With renewed organ function, he stepped from the chamber like a faun. It was chilly, but the tile beneath his feet became a lesser issue when Keith noticed his friends.

"He lives!" Pidge called from a tabletop. She flung herself upward, pad of paper in hand, and Keith could see where she and Hunk had been playing hangman. The word was 'carbuncle.'

"Someone tell Shiro," Hunk said and pushed back his chair so he could jog to Keith.

"On it!" Pidge called, already sliding off the table and sprinting out of the room. They heard her yells.

Hunk flung his thick arms around Keith's middle and lifted him off the ground. Keith pretended it didn't hurt, and he sleepily grunted beneath his breath.

"We were so worried, buddy! Shiro hasn't slept the entire time, and Lance and I even made a tent waiting for you. The convalescence chamber couldn't make up its mind when it'd release you, so we just decided to wait it out."

Lance was napping on the floor, lion slippers adorning his curled in feet. The tent was a blanket draped over two chairs, and Lance was half-way beneath it, snoring.

Keith tried not to smile, but he did. Having grown close to the other Paladins through terrifying trial and error, it was only natural for him to hug Hunk back. First, it was a small hug, but when he thought about what had almost happened, and how Hunk hoisted him to safety, Keith ground his teeth and hugged back until his fingers curled around the fabric of his shirt.

Hunk noticed, but he didn't say anything.

Footsteps darted down the hall, echoing toward them like an oncoming tidal wave. Keith filled his lungs and braced himself for a collision, but as soon as he saw Shiro, his mouth opened and he choked on his casual greeting.

The fear of death was greater than any sense of decorum.

Pretending there wasn't an audience, Keith strode toward Shiro who'd stopped in his tracks, Pidge stalling behind him. Guilt created lines along the Black Paladin's forehead, and Keith came to a screeching halt in his dramatic momentum. It wasn't the same guilt Keith had watched drift across Shiro's face time and time before. There was something clean and cool about it, like pressing his face to a marble surface and knowing he couldn't will his body beyond the barrier.

"You look good," Shiro tried and then slowly cleared his throat.

"Yeah. I'm alive," Keith joked. It was a miss.

Shiro shot his gaze downward and then closed his eyes as he mustered up strength. His nose wrinkled, and a kaleidoscope of emotions caused his brow to twitch. Thoughts anchored behind both of their teeth, and while Keith wanted to reassure Shiro things were fine, he couldn't.

_They're not fine._

_They just aren't._

Again, Hunk noticed. He clapped his hand on Keith's shoulder. "Pidge, time to go help Coran with dinner. Keith deserves something special. You know, food with salt."

Pidge caught wind of Hunk's implication, and she slowly nodded. Her eyes glanced between the two men who were still engaged in their standoff, and they narrowed behind her frames. She hopped off the table and drifted out of the room with Hunk ambling behind her.

There was a hush aside from the quiet ticking of surrounding technology. Keith tilted his head and thought to say something, but he stepped forward and closed the gap between Shiro and him. He approached the man's broad chest and reached up to take hold of the front of his shirt, but Shiro caught his wrists and held him still. He tightened his grip, being pointed.

"I let you down in a way that I've never let anyone down. You were dying, and I stood there."

 _Not even a kiss to buffer the guilt_ , Keith thought. _This isn't good._

"It was a lot of blood." Keith opened his fists so he could push his fingers toward Shiro's ribs. They made contact, and he stepped forward to press them flat against his torso. Keith could feel his pulse, the soft reverberation of his existence. "It was _a lot_ of blood."

"It was _your_ blood."

"You've seen my blood before," he muttered as if that were an argument. "Shiro, let go."

Shiro didn't take the order. "If I let you go then…"

"Then _what_?" Keith snapped, brain still foggy enough for him to have a short fuse.

After the softest whisk of hesitation, Shiro gingerly unwound his fingers from Keith's wrists. Keith immediately swept his hands up Shiro's warm chest and caught the back of his neck with one hand. He guided the man until their foreheads tenderly pressed and noses brushed, but he didn't listen to his instinct to kiss Shiro.

He waited.

"What happened to me?" Keith asked, words low.

Shiro wanted to close his eyes and anticipate a kiss, but Keith's eye contact was cold steel. The flecks of gold peppering his navy stare were new, and Shiro realized Keith's Cupid's bow was chapped purple. The truth wasn't soft on his heart, and he understood it would peel Keith open one strip at a time. Shiro cleared his throat, but he shook his head, brow lifted.

"It's not simple enough for me to tell you alone."

 _He's hiding something_ , it whispered from behind Keith's head, breath hot along the back of his neck. _Spinning you again and again because that's what heroes do. Don't let him be the hero. Don't let him leave you at the fucking loom again._

"But you know," Keith said.

Shiro didn't deny it.

Keith walked Shiro backwards toward the table, their steps resounding out of time. It wasn't until the Shiro's thighs pressed to the edge of the table did they grow quiet, entirely still. Keith counted their breaths to keep his bearings.

He continued, saying, "And you're not going to tell me because it's always the right thing to do as long as you're doing it."

Shiro caught Keith's bicep. "You're always protecting me. It's my turn. Don't make this something it isn't, Keith."

"I had a dream you slit my throat," Keith said without warning. The pain jostled his voice. "In a black pit. I let you do it. I've never had dreams like that until this planet. Tell me what's happening."

The words freefell from his bottom lip and died at their feet. Shiro's breathing temporarily stilled, but Keith's ability to look him in the eye and flick his lashes was like grass caught in a gentle wind. It was the sole thing that returned life to the stagnant moment.

"Keith," Shiro began.

The continuation of that thought was never given. Keith gripped the front of Shiro's shirt as he'd originally intended, and he tugged Shiro down. Their lips hovering and perilously close, Keith trembled. It was the shrill reminder that he was an animal for the man.

"Kiss me," he said, trying another order. "It's your turn to do that."

Shiro had more words, but Keith didn't want to hear them, no matter what he'd said. Shiro seemed to understand. He caught both sides of Keith's jaw and tugged him into the kiss, mouth opening on contact and catching the first series of Keith's hitched breathing. The honesty in every ounce of Keith's form radiated throughout the lip lock, his tongue confidently seeking out Shiro's in a way that loudly confessed their history together.

In so many ways, Shiro resisted losing control, but his fingers swept back Keith's bangs, tangling and then combing to the back of his head. There he held him, and Keith weakly suckled the man's bottom lip before flicking his tongue along Shiro's.

"I'm sorry," Shiro managed, retracting so that Keith could catch his breath.

Keith kept his eyes closed and panted, shoulders lifting and falling. It wasn't from the kiss, but because he was trying to breathe life into the emptiness of everything else.

Space was so wide, cold. Its twinkling existence simultaneously full and empty, and from the start Keith and Shiro had bonded over their love for it. That same hollow frigidity wasn't supposed to seep into everything else.

Their mouths came back together, and Keith reached to unzip the front of Shiro's vest.

"Watch it, co-pilot," Shiro lukewarmly teased and stroked his prosthetic fingers down the side of Keith's neck. He finished shoving the fabric off his arms and reached out again.

He couldn't remember the last time Shiro had used that nickname.

"Sorry, co-pilot," Keith said back and tilted his head to the side to let Shiro's fingers linger along the stretch of his throat.

"It's picking up your vitals," he explained, meaning his prosthetic. "Your heart runs faster than the average human's."

"That doesn't sound like a good thing."

"I can't find a problem with it."

Keith tugged Shiro's tucked in vest to finish ridding him of it and followed with the end of his gray shirt. He slid his hands beneath the hem, and when his fingers met taut muscles, Keith spread his fingers wide. They crept upward along plains of warm solidity, rising and falling with Shiro's contracting lungs. Keith's hands pressed over his pectorals, gathering his shirt as they went. He reached Shiro's broad shoulders, and Shiro understood the other's intent. With an arched eyebrow, he smoothly yanked his shirt over his head and let it fall onto the table behind him.

Finally, Keith smiled, and even Shiro couldn't resist returning it. As if he'd just stepped out of the chamber, Keith clambered onto Shiro, scaling his scarred body. The delayed reaction swam through them. Shiro reached for the underneath of Keith's knees and hiked him up, their mouths crashing as if they had just realized they were both still alive.

"Wow."

Lance's voice was like a bullet between the eyes.

Shiro and Keith snapped their faces in the direction of their fellow Paladin, and while Keith was prepared to push back from Shiro's body, their leader held him in place.

Keith seized one of Shiro's shoulders, the other hand on his muscle-lined hip. He didn't dare try to discern Shiro's reaction right then. If he saw even the slightest hint of embarrassment, then he knew he'd take the Red Lion back to that killer planet and sunbathe.

"Shit," Keith breathed and cut his gaze to the floor.

"Right— _shit_ ," Lance repeated. "That's kind of what I'd call it, too. This explains a lot. Wait—more like—this explains _everything_. Is this why Keith's second-in-command? Co-pilot… Is this how you become _co-pilot_?"

Lance's gaze darted between the two several times. Clearly, he couldn't process what exactly was happening. Deceit followed by disgust and then flat anger flashed like lightning strikes. He clenched the pillow held at his side.

Keith tried to concentrate on Lance. He wanted to look apologetic, but the heat between Shiro and him was melting, making his mouth wet. 

"We're a team!" he snapped at them, but his voice wavered. "You're not… You _can't_ …"

He opened his mouth, but the words lodged in his throat. Lance swore in Spanish and jerked his shoulder away from the pair. Back facing them, he stormed from the infirmary and disappeared into the brightly lit corridor.

"He's going to tell them," Keith said, dull and emptied out.

"I don't think Lance would do that."

"We should head upstairs," Keith said, hearing Shiro's authoritative echo in his words.

Shiro didn't seem interested in upstairs. He shifted Keith forward and softly dragged his lips from Keith's chin and down to his Adam's apple. Keith split his frown apart at the first suck, breath quickening and heat spreading along the wall of his navel like magma. After a string of uncertainty, Keith tilted his head back and threw a rug over his unanswered question.

_What's wrong with me?_

"You're right," Shiro admitted, but his mouth didn't stop working. He kissed to Keith's clavicles and weakly grunted when Keith squeezed his hips with his thighs.

"It's selfish not to go back."

"Let me be selfish, Keith. Just this once."

Shiro pushed off the table and spun them, suddenly planting Keith's spine against the table with a dead thud that shouted through Keith's internal organs. Urgency rippled, and he reached for Shiro's belt, undoing it with practiced hands and enjoying every soft clink of metal.

"I love you," Shiro said. It was hardline, making a point in some debate Keith hadn't even thought to instigate. "I _do_ love you."

Keith's gaze softened. He pulled off his shirt before sitting back up, and he touched Shiro's forearm, inspecting his face.

The words blew through him, powerful enough to realign constellations.

"I know. I love you, too."

Shiro leaned down to firmly press his mouth to Keith's crown, but it was Keith who pushed off his pants and briefs, letting them fall from his ankles and onto the cold floor. Keith shivered at the full exposure, but Shiro was quick to make heat. He dragged a hand down Keith's trimmed happy trail, traveling lower and lower until his fingers traced the base of his stiffening cock. Right before Keith could groan, Shiro tauntingly slid his hand up his stomach.

Months without sex left Keith impatient. Shiro toyed, but Keith finished shucking Shiro's tight pants. His hand reached out, cupping the weighty bulge that was separated from fingers by a thin layer of black cotton. Keith slowly pushed down the front, and after a perilous moment, watched his cock spring free from its straining containment. Unabashed, Keith took the crown into his palm and admired its pink tip, rubbing the weepy slit with his thumb.

Shiro cut back an inhale. He relented and took Keith's length into his hand, stroking him from base to tip and relishing the rigidness. Keith huskily moaned and mimicked Shiro's motions, only stopping to reach back and rub Shiro's balls, thumb and index finger rolling the egg-shaped glands one at a time. His free hand settled firmly against Shiro's pelvis.

Keith's thighs tensed and he hissed before whispering, "More. Give it to me, Shiro."

Shiro reached for a nearby tray, fingers fumbling as he sought out one of the containers of translucent healing jelly. He motioned for Keith to hold the bottom so that he wouldn't have to stop stroking, and when Keith figured out what he wanted, Shiro unscrewed the lid.

"Teamwork," Shiro joked, and Keith reached and tossed the lid aside. The Red Paladin quickened his pumping wrist, and Shiro's knees buckled. " _Keith_."

Keith watched him dip his fingers into the same jelly he pretended he didn't have in his bedroom. Shiro stopped stroking and grabbed the underneath of Keith's naked calf, pushing it back with full confidence in the other's flexibility. Keith didn't feel a strain, but his chest tightened when Shiro was given an unapologetic view of him, spread leg and balls taut.

"We'll take it slower in my room after..."

There was another squeeze from Keith, and Shiro didn't finish the thought.

Keith knew Shiro didn't want to get caught a second time, but the overwhelming need to be together after near-death made the walk upstairs feel like the climb from Hades. They could suck one another off later, he figured. Right now he needed to know they could still be together.

"Come here," Shiro muttered and tugged Keith a little closer.

His coated fingers reached down between them, and he slowly encircled his thumb along Keith's entrance. Shiro applied pressure, but he didn't press enough to push inside. His thumb brushed upward along the space above his hole and then glided back down.

"Fuck," Keith tersely said beneath his breath, and he dragged his fingers through his own hair. Eyes on the ceiling, he steadied his panting.

Shiro didn't use his thumb. He replaced it with his middle finger, and once confident Keith was relaxed, pushed it inside. Keith's walls constricted him, but he pulled back and swiftly started to drive it in and out. Keith moaned and pressed his wrist to his mouth. He arched off the tabletop, sucking in quick breaths while trying to maintain control. The second finger soon joined, but it wasn't until Shiro pressed a third finger inside did the resistance cause Keith to hiccup.

Keith survived the embarrassment of the noise and curled his toes.

"Like that?" Shiro asked and Keith caught the end of the table, visibly restraining himself. He whimpered behind clenched teeth and turned to press his forehead against the table, twisting himself onto his side.

"Takashi," Keith breathed, condensation building against the table's surface.

Shiro's gut dipped, and he slowly pulled his fingers from Keith. They returned to the pot of salve, and he scooped out a generous dollop. Shiro coated his cock, eyes never leaving Keith's crumpled form as he stroked himself and leaned over the other man.

"Tell me you want this," Shiro murmured against Keith's shoulder, kissing the spot just for the sake of contact. Each kiss was lazy, unfocused.

Keith felt Shiro's cockhead nudging, ready to press through that first ring of muscle. His chest heaved as if the air were knocked out of him, and Keith nodded, half-nonsensical. "I want it. I've wanted it since you left me."

Carefully, Shiro rocked his hips forward. Keith parted his lips in a silent cry that escaped in unison with Shiro's husky moan. He reached over and curled his finger into Shiro's hair as his body opened for the Black Paladin. Shiro was patient. He continued forward until Keith's muscles relaxed enough to give with the slightest resistance.

"God," Keith groaned and scraped his fingers against the smooth surface. "Oh, God."

Shiro was inside of him.

Shiro glided forward and Keith tightened his grip on Shiro's hair. There, Shiro reached to pet along Keith's naked chest, fingers tracing defined muscles before he retracted his hips and left Keith feeling empty. He repeated his gentle adjustment for Keith, but Shiro was only human. Once he'd paid his dues, Shiro gripped the edge of the table beside Keith's head and quickened his hips, finding a tempo that mounted.

"Takashi— _mn_ , fuck…"

Keith was spread again and again, the stretch knocking hard gasps from him with every climbing thrust. Keith strangled on Shiro's name, and he reached for the backs of his own knees, pulling them so that Shiro's shallow thrusts could prod deeper.

"Talk to me, baby," Shiro encouraged, and Keith covered his face with an arm, quirking the corner of his mouth. It faltered when Shiro reached to stroke him again. "You want to. You used to love bossing me around."

Keith hesitated and yielded with a throaty, " _Harder_."

"You just came out of the cryopod," Shiro warned, but he was already changing his pace.

"Harder, Takashi. Fuck me harder."

Shiro's jerking hips became relentless, pounding Keith until skin smacking against skin filled the sprawling infirmary. Keith's thighs accumulated a sheen of sweat, and he jolted when Shiro found that tender patch inside. The man began to grind, building friction against it until Keith's cries drifted from occasional to consistent echoes he couldn't control.

"I love it when you fuck me," Keith sobbed, and he groaned when Shiro dragged his tongue along his shoulder. "I-I love you."

_You're the only person who calls me that._

_Calls you what?_

_Takashi._

_Should I stop?_

_Don't. It means a lot to me._

Shiro finished first, coating Keith's walls in a spread of milky warmth with a gruff yell he silenced with Keith's throat. Keith came second, but only after he looked down and realized it was Shiro's prosthetic arm that was jerking him, ushering him to finish with perfectly concise pulls. One long glance and he'd entered a euphoric state, writhing and locking up muscle after muscle until ribbons of white released onto his firm abdominals.

_Yes. Yes. Yes._

"It's been a while," Shiro murmured as he swiped his hand along the mess on Keith's stomach. He kissed Keith's forehead, the pressure featherlike. "It's been too long."

Keith couldn't move, but he didn't miss the moment when Shiro sucked his GalraTech fingers clean.

Whatever energy Keith had manifested when stepping out of the pod had circled the drain. Tired, he let Shiro lug him upward, and he reluctantly tugged on his tattered clothing. His arms were heavy when they started their trek toward the kitchen, and black dots scattered across his vision. Keith realized he was smiling, but when he rubbed his mouth, it wouldn't erase.

"Let's feed you and put you to bed."

"You're going to have to literally feed me."

Shiro considered this. "If you insist."

They slept together, curled up beneath Shiro's blankets and unmoving in their effortless ability to exist in the same presence as one another. It was a stability that reminded Keith of Earth, an era long gone to them both. Keith was beginning to understand that home wasn't so much where he was, but who he was with and the person who helped him experience his stories.

In the morning, Keith woke to an empty bed.

This wasn't an uncommon feature in his relationship with Shiro, and rather than rolling over in disenchantment, Keith forced himself from beneath the blankets.

Walking toward the door for his room for proper clothing, he groggily reached to scratch his side and realized his pajamas felt too tight along his sore body. The fabric uncomfortably clung to his skin, restricting his stiff movements. Keith reached for the hem with the thought to swiftly tug it overhead, but when he looked down, he stopped mid-pull.

His hands. They were violet.

Startled by his own body, he shot backward but quickly realized his hands were attached to his person. Violet wasn't the only change. His nails, once filed short and kept immaculately clean, were elongated and sadistically pointed.

 _Talons_ , he realized. _I have talons._

'How far had it spread?' was the real question.

The nearest reflective surface was an untouched hand mirror on Shiro's desk. He darted toward it and leaned over as if peering into a pool, and Keith's chest spasmed upon seeing himself. Though dark, he could still tell the entirety of his body was that all too familiar purple color. Eyes, once navy, peered back at him as a distinctive 24k. That said, they weren't what caused him to reach for his throat, and once again, shift backward as if he could escape himself.

Ears he remembered as fleshy cartilage were replaced by two mousy shells on either side of his head.

Keith hesitantly reached to touch one, but as soon as he did, it flicked backward in the same nature of a disgruntled horse. Instantly, he jerked his arm down. Terror ran through him, his blood pressure crawled across the ceiling, and he tried to contain his tattered wits.

Two hard breaths through clenched teeth later, Keith confidently strode back to the mirror and stared himself in the eye. The changed features were still there, sinister in their similarity to every Galra he'd ever seen, but there was something profoundly human about him.

It was the remaining pupils, the shattered glass of his iris, and his black, black hair.

That wasn't enough to comfort him.

Full of adrenaline, Keith clenched his fists at his side and turned to race out the bedroom's doorway. Bare feet pounded against the corridor's floor, and each smack echoed off the walls, creating the rhythm for his phantom drummer boy. Keith caught the corner of a right turn and swung himself, then using the momentum of his swing to push him faster toward the control room. As he traversed through Castle Lion's unrelenting maze, he noticed he felt lighter, somehow faster.

The control room door greeted him like a colossal. Beyond it, he could hear the murmuring of others, and he stood panting and stunned. He was going to have to face his team.

"You can't blindly trust him until we know, Shiro," Allura snapped, on the brink of a plea. "It's bad enough you had him in your bedroom."

One of his ears twitched at the sound of Shiro's distinctive voice, and Keith scowled at it. He stepped forward and pressed his palm against the keypad, noting the harsh dissonance of a group making the joint decision to simultaneously stop speaking. Chairs clattered, and when the door slid open, Keith was faced with six figures standing straight, shoulders back.

Apparently, no one was new to the idea of Keith's appearance. The shock he'd expected was replaced with evident bated breath, and much to his frustration, he realized they were all holding their Bayards. Shiro's unlit hand was the only gesture maintaining the peace. Even Allura, the most logic-based out of them all, was tightly gripping the back of a chair, and Coran has stepped forward, prepared to unfurl along with the rest of them at any sign of distress.

"How long have you known?" Allura asked, words like dull nails beating a message into his skin.

"Known what?" Keith asked, matching her tone and then looking down at his unnatural palms once more. He clenched them tight and let them fall. "I didn't do anything to make this happen."

Keith could cut the tension with his sword, but he knew all that would bleed out was the word 'monster.'

"You're okay," Shiro promised. He went to step forward, but Keith's hardened look shut him down. "You're not in danger like this."

"Is that what we're calling this?" Keith asked and pointed toward his furred ears. They hadn't lifted since he'd walked through the door, and with hiked shoulders, he looked ready to hiss. "What happened on that planet? Why am I the only one who looks like _this_? Because it doesn't look _okay_ to me right now. I am not _okay_ , Shiro."

Shiro stepped forward, but Allura beat him to the punch and shifted in front of him as if giving a clear order. Not even a Paladin, Allura rarely undermined Shiro when he addressed his teammates, but something was wrong.

"It wasn't the planet, Keith," she answered. Unlike everyone else, she was always ready to break ungodly news.

"Then what was it?"

Hunk exhaled hard enough to catch Keith's attention. He could see the man becoming anxious in how he whistled and sat down only to rapidly stand again two seconds later. Hunk rubbed his biceps, and Pidge clenched her fists, glance tossing at everything but Keith's face. Lance seemed self-satisfied beneath his weighted frown and crossed arms. Without prompting, he scoffed for good measure, and to Keith, for no reason.

A twinge spread throughout his chest, winding around his ribs like wire. After all, Lance was supposed to be his friend.

"We've been running your blood work since the moment you were submerged," Allura said and circled a makeshift table to patiently prod at the controls. "We considered disease, even druid magic, but when we finished a full analysis of your specs, we were shocked to discover that half of your chromosomes are structured with the same integrity as the Galra."

A blue holographic display appeared behind her. On the left, there was a spinning model of human DNA with the word 'human' labeled beneath it. To its right was 'galra,' a somewhat similar but black and purple geometric model that reminded Keith of industrial architecture. Beneath the two rested the final model. While curved like a human's, its colorization was strikingly purple. Throughout the blueprint ran trails of black speckles. It looked confused, near diseased, and ugly in comparison to the other two. It was labelled 'Keith.'

Allura continued, "Currently, your genes are mutating, and there's nothing we can do to stop them. This is mostly because we don't know what provoked it."

The implication laid over them like a horse blanket. Keith understood what she meant, but he tightened his expression further. "I don't know either."

She didn't believe him. Keith realized this when she screwed up her nose, sniffing back hard. That was more than enough to set him off, but considering the precarious circumstances, he didn't want to instigate anything. One wrong submission to impulse and he'd be battling the supposed strongest warriors in the universe. More dauntingly, he'd be battling his friends.

"He doesn't know," Shiro reiterated. His words were souring by the second. "I believe him the same as I'd believe the rest of the team if they said they didn't know."

Allura didn't like his rationale, but she also couldn't argue against the guilt it made her feel. She cleared her throat and stared up at the three DNA samples. "Fair enough, but we're going to do more research. I want to look into Keith's paternity. You said you were an orphan, Keith."

This was not a question, but an observation of fact.

"Yeah. What about it?"

She reached up and spun the hideous hybrid DNA strand like a gameshow wheel. "Tell me what you know about your father."

Nothing. Keith knew nothing. That was exactly what he told Allura before she nodded with a hum. A dramatic pause presented itself before she reminded Keith he needed more rest.

"I'm going to shower," Keith announced.

Fortunately, Shiro's belief in Keith had alleviated the dread in the room. Pidge finally looked Keith in the eye, and Hunk lifted his hands in the air as if praising something. Lance was the only one who wouldn't look at Keith as he turned to bathe.

_You fight like a Galra soldier._

Zarkon's voice dug its claws deep, wrenching him close by the very handles of his collarbones.

The walk to the showers was unending, merciless in its silence and Keith's pained thoughts. Keith pushed his hands up both of his cheeks and swallowed the lump in his throat. He was seen as the enemy by the only people who'd ever loved him beyond his military talents.

The shower was full of mirrors, a regular Versailles with its repetitive reflections that intersected one another.

Keith entered the space and immediately closed his eyes. He'd never been vain, but there was something about his human appearance that he'd always been comfortable with. In fact, it was one of the only things about himself he'd ever found agreeable.

Slowly, he reopened his eyes and faced himself, the corners of his mouth turned down. He was unmoving, breathing steady.

"Keith."

Shiro's voice echoed, but Keith didn't move. His ear twitched, and his heart rate escalated, but he couldn't think linear thoughts. His brain bounced against his skull's walls, and a foreign rage crept up his throat. Keith slowly unclenched his fingers.

 _You're a blueprint belonging to the very architect who's ruined the lives of those you love. The precipice you stand on is smoke and mirrors, and the core of you is a monster_ , it reminded him _. He will not love you past this. You will not love you past this. You're good for one thing, and that is to kill._

Without a flinch of warning, Keith flung himself at the mirrors with balled fists. They slammed with harrowing force, and Keith ignored the immediate splintering of glass, the cuts along his hands. He pounded with the intent of destroying himself, mangling all he saw.

He'd wanted to be good.

All Keith had wanted was to be good like his friends, like Shiro.

Keith screamed at his own broken reflection, a heartbroken sob ripping from his throat in all its raw, pulpy honesty. Shiro darted behind him and wrapped his arms around his waist, and Keith flailed with the intent to cause bodily harm to both Shiro and himself.

Shiro used all of his strength, even igniting his prosthetic arm to keep Keith still, and he slumped against the wall and sank to the floor with haggard breathing.

"Keith," Shiro said, stern and severe. He grabbed Keith's wrists, noting the blood draining from the sides of his hands. "Keith, calm down. It's okay. We know you didn't know."

 _You're their enemy_ , it breathed. _Do not trust them._

"You knew," Keith mournfully breathed.

"I did."

He had from the start. 

 


	6. 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GET IN THE ROBOT, SHIRO

"It's not my fault we can't form Voltron," Keith snapped, standing inside central command, his helmet held tight beneath his armpit. "I'm as connected to Red as I was when I first found her. Whatever happened a few weeks back is a nonissue. I've felt _fine_."

After the reveal of Keith's mutation and Shiro's pointed defense, a timid calm draped even the darkest recesses of Castle Lion. Though no longer human looking, Keith as a person hadn't changed. Aside from the fact his long hair tickled his new ears and he had to wear it back as a result, even his mannerisms and method of presenting hadn't altered. He was just Keith Kogane.

But purple.

"I was hoping for _some_ kind of change," Lance had commented, attempting to make the usual biting joke between them. It'd fallen flat, drifting from his expression. Keith saw the pain line his face, but he'd refused to acknowledge it in the open. "I guess… or I don't know..."

Unsure, Lance grabbed his helmet and retreated to one of the lounges upstairs. Keith leaned between his knees, hands smoothing over his ears and heart draining.

"Do you want me to talk to him?" Shiro had asked, appearing out of thin air. More premonition than human. "He deserves an explanation for what he saw. If he doesn't know the history, then we can't blame him for acting this way. He's confused."

"Don't," Keith murmured.

Shiro put his hand on the back of Keith's neck.

"Don't," Keith repeated.

He'd stood, tearing away from Shiro's touch and drifting down the same path as Lance.

There were days when Keith wished he'd kept pretending nothing was wrong.

Hindsight was 20/20, and Keith found himself considering this while standing in front of Allura, his shoulders thrust back and weight shifted onto a single foot. Galran or not, he was attempting to withhold a sneer and remain as collected as Shiro had taught him to be back at the Garrison. That said, the breathing exercises weren't working. His fingers were locking up, teeth tight.

"We're not blaming you," Allura said, perched at the helm and eyes forward. "I was only asking if things felt different. A lot has happened, and it'd be wrong not to inquire."

They'd tried forming purely for the sake of training, and for reasons Shiro couldn't sense, the lions had jammed and refused to unite. Unable to find a fix, they'd returned to the castle and were currently circled around the princess and Coran.

"This is bad, bad, bad," Hunk reiterated and glanced out into the broad nothingness. He tried to chew his nails with his gloves on, realized what he was doing, and tugged one off with his teeth. "If another one of those invisible fleet things show up, then we're doomed. Seriously, fried. Full on rolled omelet with the line of ketchup, but like, _blood_. I'm going downstairs to check out Yellow's specs. Maybe we overlooked something. Maybe we just need to talk."

Pidge glanced at Hunk as he disappeared and sighed, loudly. "I'm going downstairs to figure something out, too. Princess, can we run a tracing circuit through every lion again? With our luck, it's probably something as simple as a magnetic hinge loose."

"Already on it, Pidge," Coran said, saluting her with two fingers as if to imply great minds think alike. "Between all these big brains, we shouldn't be sitting like fraqsplats much longer."

Shiro approached Allura's side to inspect the map, arms crossed over his chest and eyes forward in unflinching concentration. Lance was already running his fingers across the controls beside Coran. Keith pretended he didn't notice when Lance shot him a side look.

"Keith," Pidge started and it startled the Red Paladin out of his churning self-deprecation. He blinked and turned toward her.

"Yeah?" he asked, cautious on every syllable.

"I think I need your help, actually. One smaller lion to another."

She wasn't prepared to take 'no' for an answer. Keith hesitated in surprise but shrugged it off before trailing after her, away from the control room. The pair walked in silence down to the main chamber where they could make way to the Green Lion's hangar.

Pidge tapped her helmet. She struck it twice and ran her hand along the back of her neck.

Keith noticed, and he slowed, squinting at her thin fingers. She tapped again without looking at him, pointed toward the darkened pods where their armor was left for cleaning, and signed 'silence.'

Signals were Keith's nightmare fuel, but he understood she wanted him to store his helmet and keep his guard shouldered. Keith cleared his throat and did as asked, sealing away the sole communicator between all of the Paladins. It wasn't until she was sure hers was locked up did she sidle up to Keith and speak freely.

"Did you see the screen?" she asked, words low and soft. Pidge was basically mouthing at Keith, which again, was not Keith's strong spot. Determined, he closely watched her lips, the way her tongue flicked along her front teeth. "When we tried to form Voltron? The Black Lion didn't…"

He didn't catch the last word, but he understood enough to see what she meant. "Are you saying it's the Black Lion's fault we can't form Voltron?"

"I'm not sure," she admitted. "But when it disappeared off the screen, it was my first thought."

"I didn't see it disappear," he said and glanced over his shoulder, listening for footfalls.

"That's because it's not your job to care about what's on the screen beyond the radar." She motioned for him to follow her again, taking the backway to her hangar. It was an endless flight of steps that circled downward. They were veiled by a nearly impenetrable darkness, and even the blue lamps along the walls didn't do much to cut through the black. "Shiro and you are…"

"Friends," Keith tried too quickly. His face seared with heat.

"Sure," Pidge countered. She rolled her eyes so far Keith wondered if it hurt. "Has he mentioned anything to you about the Black Lion being kind of _weird_?"

"No. It's fine. Shiro's fine."

"See…" She started but then stopped herself as she faltered. The hurt in her voice was alien to Keith. "I think something's wrong with Shiro. He hasn't been the same since he got back from his last fight with Haggar. Lance brought it up in the kitchen when Shiro was sitting with you while you were in the cryopod. It's like, he's not all there anymore. He doesn't want to be here."

Keith couldn't stop himself from asking. "What was Lance's theory?"

"He tried to pin it on you—"

He barked out a small laugh. " _Right_."

"But then he was the one who mentioned Haggar. I think something happened during their fight and his time in the wormhole. Whatever happened to him could be why your Galran mutation took over, too. That planet might've just been a coincidence."

Keith halted, the echo of his final step lingering. "Pidge, what're you trying to say?"

"I won't say it until I know for sure, but be careful around Shiro, Keith. I think we have grounds to consider the possibility that he's not stable, and you're his main outlet."

 _Outlet_ —Keith interpreted that as derogatory as his mind would allow it. He could only imagine how the other Paladins saw them if this was Pidge's opinion. A place for Shiro to bleed out his frustration as a stifled leader, a hole to wreck and hair to tear at.

Did they do more fucking than talking?

Maybe.

But what was there to talk about at this point?

They were soldiers who were going to die before they made it home. There was nothing wrong with wrapping his legs around Shiro's hips or pushing the man's face down into the mattress. They had nothing else at this point, right? What else did they have except one another? It'd been that way long before Voltron.

"I'd know how he is before anyone," Keith bit, the curtness in his voice all at once uncanny. He reached for his throat and tried not to let the panic surge. " _I_ would know before anyone. Shiro is the way he's always been. He's just wrung out. He hasn't had a break since Kerberos."

"Stop talking so loud," she hissed and waited to make sure they were still alone. Pidge grabbed Keith's arm and tugged him down onto her level. "Look, all I'm saying is something is wrong. Things haven't been right since Red stopped on you. I know Shiro and you are—we all know, okay? But what that means is you're emotionally compromised and you can't see him objectively anymore. He's leading you. He's not leading us."

The logic was there. Keith hated there was truth in what she had to say, and he cast his look down as he tried to recollect how Shiro had been leading them.

Much to his own disappointment, it occurred to him he'd been more concentrated on the idea of them together than saving the universe.

Like a fleet of spiders, a chill legged around Keith's spine. He gently retracted from Pidge's hold and very slowly lowered himself onto the stairs, catching himself with a gloved hand. In silence, he kept his eyes forward and considered what exactly he'd allowed to happen.

"I think you need to talk to Lance."

Keith resented the idea.

There was no explanation for why he did resent it, though. Not at that point, anyway. He recognized this and reached up to smooth his hands along his armored clavicles. If he was going to be a fair part of the team, then he had to regroup himself and see himself as a member. Their leader was letting them down, and he was refusing to look it in the eye.

Keith stood with a small pop in his knees, and he turned away from Pidge. "I'm going to find Lance."

His dandelion stare shifted toward the door-shaped light at the stop of the stairs, and Keith bolted toward it. Pidge wordlessly allowed him to leave her, and with a frowned tinged with uncertainty, she returned to walking toward the castle's underworld.

If Lance was still with Coran, then he'd have no problem tugging the Blue Paladin into the kitchen to talk. Keith figured this as he dashed toward where he'd come from, long legs bringing him closer and closer in between breath he refused to see as panicked.

The longer he thought back on how disconnected he'd been from the other Paladins, and even Shiro's emotional disposition, the more things began to piece together.

Past the kitchen, past the lounges, past the stairs that led to dormitories; Keith wondered how things had gone from sleeping on a futon in a shack, discussing their future together, to _this_.

_When I get back with that money from the Kerberos Mission, then we'll be able to do whatever we want, be whoever we want to be, Keith._

"Keith."

Shiro's voice hit him like a roadblock. He stumbled over his own steps but confidently regained his balance before coming to a comfortable stop. Shiro was standing in the doorway to one of the lounges, water pouch in hand and eyebrow raised in concern.

"Is something wrong?" he asked, amused by how Keith had hit the brakes.

 _You better learn to fucking lie to him_ , a voice screamed from the back of his head. Keith hit the thrusters on his self-control, and he shook his head at Shiro's question, mouth slack.

He was still breathing hard. "No. I'm hungry."

Shiro didn't believe him, but he was polite enough to refrain from pushing the topic. He crossed his arms instead, leaning against the side of the very door he'd stepped through. Shiro raised his hand and gestured for Keith to come closer with a single finger, something Keith hadn't seen Shiro do since he wore a bomber jacket and Aviators on the Garrison runways. Keith's expression softened, and as if under a spell, he stepped toward the Black Paladin.

In that moment, he didn't know how to negotiate his place on the team and place in the man's life. He was a part of a unit, and he'd been trained from a young age to see himself as anything but individual, but he was also the right hand of Voltron. He was Shiro's right hand man.

He wanted to scream, tear the burning from his esophagus with his own hands.

Where was he supposed to sit on that broad spectrum of obligation? This was not something they'd trained him for at the Garrison.

The government didn't teach its cadets how to love someone.

"We should talk," Shiro said, words mirroring the near-silence of Pidge's. "When I say what I want to say, I don't want you to get—upset. Hear me out first."

"Should we go somewhere else?" Keith asked, declaring war against himself for being so willing. He felt like a starved dog.

"Training deck," Shiro suggested, mouth slanted with his familiar smile.

Calm. All was calm.

They walked to the training deck in comfortable silence. Keith's favorite one, to be exact. As always, he was startled by the way planets passed by in their individuality; mustard yellow, purple like spilled blood beneath skin, and sometimes, the vibrant white of sun on snow. They were the homes of lifeforms he was fated to protect, and though he regularly felt small, there was something about the sheer enormity of that task that didn't frighten him. It was exciting, a strong sense of purpose that permeated the infrastructure of his being. He was meant to be a Paladin.

"There's a lot of them, isn't there?" Shiro asked, standing alongside Keith. "So many places and people we'll never meet or understand."

"Yeah," he said in quiet confirmation. Keith reached and pressed his fingers against the glass, breath leaving his lungs with a smile. A glimmer appeared in his yellowed eyes, warm and earnest. "But isn't it amazing how the one thing that unites us all is agency? We want to be free. We know what that's like, and so we're here protecting that."

"Do you really feel free here?" Shiro asked.

Keith dropped his hand from the glass. "No. If I did, then what'd be the point of fighting like this? I might not be the Red Paladin who lives to even see it, but I like the idea of being a part of this fight for autonomy…"

He stopped himself when Shiro drifted his hand to his hip and bent over to hide his face in Keith's neck. Shiro let his helmet fall to the padded floor, and Keith reached to hold Shiro's head in place. Keith opened his mouth to say something, but he thought twice when Shiro lifted his forehead to his temple and pressed them together.

_Beneath his feet sits black water._

"You're so good," Shiro whispered, and there was both pride and pain there. "You're everything I knew you'd be and more."

"I'm not as good as you."

"You're better than me."

Keith licked his upper lip and attempted to shake his head at that praise. Shiro was the beacon, and he wouldn't have it any other way. "What did you want to talk about?"

Shiro's arms encircled him tighter, and with a gentle squeeze, his embrace fell lax. He let go of Keith and then turned to face the other, back hitting the window so Keith couldn't look elsewhere.

"I'm going to run away."

_His foot sinks with a splash._

"Run away?" Keith asked, realizing how he sounded as he attempted to regain his bearings and continue with the conversation. "Shiro, what do you mean run away? Do you mean run away from this? From the _castle_?"

Shiro pushed both hands along his head and exhaled, hard. "From Voltron."

Keith didn't allow himself to smell the treason in that two-word sentence. He dropped his Bayard and strode toward Shiro, the spacescape surrounding the man at first, and eventually, closing in as Keith focused on his face. Keith reached up and caught Shiro's shoulders, trying to see through the man's forlorn expression.

Sadness.

There was such an accumulation of agony on Shiro's face.

"You _can't_."

"I _am_. I decided a long time ago."

Keith breathed through gritted teeth, and he didn't notice when he punched at Shiro's chest and yanked him forward, jostling his torso. "Talk to me, Shiro. We can talk this out. It's hard. I know, but you can… we can..."

"You _don't_ know," Shiro shot back.

Keith was sobered by that truth, but he didn't let go. "Just talk to me. You used to _talk_ to me..."

… _about everything. We were once each other's everything._

"There's nothing to talk about. You know what I've been through. You sleep beside me, Keith," Shiro said, unflinching. "I say terrible things in my sleep. I've had horrible things done to me, and I didn't sign up for this to keep going after I escaped. I didn't want this for either of us."

Keith gripped Shiro's hips and he tried to keep himself calm, but there was a rawness to his voice. Mournfulness, even. "You don't scream anymore. It's quieter. You're getting better."

Shiro captured both sides of Keith's face. Keith shook his head and was fighting back tears, obstructing them with cinderblocks of rage, self-hate.

"Quiet is not synonymous with better."

Keith reached for Shiro's wrists with trembling hands, his fingers opening but then locking at the joints. He clenched them into fists and breathed 'no' as if meditating on the word. Shiro brought the Red Paladin to his chest and touched the center of his spine. Keith's hot breath blew against Shiro's armor, creating a humid wall. He stuttered on air and a tear finally dripped from his eyes. He resented it, but he couldn't stop himself.

"Come with me," Shiro whispered into Keith's soft hair, his words muffled by his tousled locks. Keith pretended he didn't feel the damp droplets on his scalp, didn't hear how Shiro's voice broke on the next word. "We don't have to keep doing this. I can't keep ignoring you for this."

"We were chosen for this," Keith tried, only half-believing himself.

"Chosen for _what_?"

The question went unanswered.

Overhead, a blare of alarms and flashing lights signaled for an immediate emergency. Keith tugged back from Shiro's hold and reached for both sides of the man's head. He pulled him down into a harsh kiss, biting his bottom lip with dull fangs. Shiro snaked his arms around Keith, using his height to his advantage and tilting Keith back so that he could have control between them. Shiro attempted to take hold of the final moments where Keith's soft lips faithfully mingled against his. Shiro's hands scraped along the other's back, and he didn't stop, not even when the castle trembled.

Keith sucked in air through his nose, and he reached out to steady himself, hand hitting the glass again. His other hand clawed along the back of Shiro's neck and he dug in his fingernails, hard.

"Paladins!" Allura's voice blared over the intercom. Without warning, the PA system burned to static. "Pa… ther… Galr…"

Keith pulled from Shiro's hold and glanced to the side, lips dewy and breathing ragged. He looked out the window and spotted the Galran military fleet.

"We can talk about this afterward," Keith stammered, not sure where the authority was coming from. A foreign purr surfaced toward the forefront of his head, but he shook it off. Keith scooped his Bayard off the ground and ran for the door. "Lions, Shiro."

Shiro hesitated, and that alone made Keith stop. He turned around and stared at the leader from across the training deck. Realizing what Shiro was thinking, Keith shook his head and ran back to him. When he'd grabbed Shiro up the first time, it'd been out of desperation, grief. This was still grief, but the hardened rage of it; the idea that self could not come before the universe.

Keith jerked Shiro's shoulders hard, eyes lit with rage. "Get in your lion, Shiro!"

He blinked through his contemplation as if smacked across the face. Shiro opened his GalraTech hand, inspected its palm, and then clenched it shut with nod.

"Let's go."

Keith led the way to the armory and hangar doors. He retrieved his helmet, but before he tugged it on, he reached for Shiro's arm. Shiro paused and looked back at Keith, smiling at his uncertain but quietly affectionate expression.

"We'll talk when we get back," Shiro promised.

"Okay," Keith said, soft and suddenly patient.

"I love you," he said. "No matter what I say or do."

"I know."

Another quake struck the ship, and before Keith could say 'I love you' back, they were forced to part for their lions. The entire trip downward, Keith tried to clear his head and remember to focus. If he needed to do anything in that moment, then it was to center himself and think. If they could all relax, then maybe they could form Voltron. There'd been tighter spots than a fleet.

Keith landed in the hangar with a grunt and jogged toward the Red Lion. There she stood, unmoving at first, but eventually, eyes aglow. Keith smiled at her presence and jogged toward her, waiting for that habitual lowering of the mouth and rush toward his chair.

But she didn't move.

"Hey!" he yelled, trying to sound kind. "Hey, come on! We're in _trouble_!"

She didn't move, eyes still lit. Keith knew he was experiencing connective purring. He exhaled hard and stepped closer. Another blast of lasers rained against Castle Lion, and when the lights flickered, he charged toward the lion's paw. Keith patted the ginormous ankle.

"Alright, buddy! This isn't cool! We've got to _go_!"

Again, nothing.

Keith screamed behind his teeth and smacked at the paw with both hands.

"Come _on_! We were just outside!"

Shiro's ID appeared across his visor in red. Keith took the invitation to the private transmission, and he exhaled through heavy breathing.

"I'll be out there in a second," Keith promised. "Red is doing that _thing_ again."

"Keith, I can't get into the Black Lion."

The panic in Shiro's voice was there but solemn. Apparently, he'd been doing his own yelling, too. His breathing was thick, worn out from whatever he'd been trying to get through to the Black Lion. Keith knew the attempt all too well at that point.

"What do you mean you can't get into the lion?" Keith asked and gazed up at the underbelly of Red.

"I can't even feel it."

Shiro opened the transmission to the other Paladins who were shouting directions to one another out on the battlefield. Keith winced, heart aching from his inability to be there to help.

"We're having lion issues," Keith said, and there was a chorus of their names, an inquiry about Shiro aka their rock. "Shiro and I will be out there soon. You guys are doing great."

Keith had no idea if they were, but he knew the state of their moralities meant winning the day. He turned the transmission back to private and heavily cleared his throat.

"I'm coming to you," Keith said. "I'll be right there, Shiro. Let Allura know what's going on and keep an eye out for anything that might be wrong with the Black Lion. _Anything_."

"Copy that."

Keith sprinted toward his hangar's motorbike and returned to the armory. The only way to get to Shiro was through the stairs he'd taken with Pidge earlier that day. Keith descended into the darkness, loathing every slow step and wondering how the castle didn't have an escalator.

Sweat collected along the back of his neck, but something told him it wasn't because of the steps. The darkness was uncomfortably familiar, the pit within the circling, rail-less stairs making his guts clench tight in an illogical fear. It festered into something curdled and insidious.

There was suddenly a magenta glow, and he spotted Shiro waiting at the bottom with his arm illuminated. His helmet was off, cast aside on the floor.

Keith tugged his off. His ears twitched upward, and he shook his bangs off his forehead as he descended with unsteady breathing. It was anxiety, he told himself. Nothing more.

"Find anything?" Keith asked.

Shiro shook his head, and he rolled his shoulders back with a defeated sigh. "No."

Keith didn't have a chance to respond. Shiro flung out his GalraTech arm and charged toward him with the kind of lithe footwork that made it impossible to instantly recognize what he was doing. A tiny voice screamed for Keith to move, to defend himself, but he couldn't comprehend the concept of Shiro attacking him under any circumstances.

It wasn't until Shiro raised his arm to strike did Keith's Bayard change into a sword. Keith flung the weapon upward to block Shiro, the hand colliding with the fuller hard enough to send Keith flying backward into the darkness. He landed on his back with a merciless skid and rolled over onto his stomach, bouncing toward the wall. Keith pushed himself up to his feet out of reflex, and when he turned to look at Shiro, his breathing stopped.

Yellow eyes.

"Shiro," Keith started in warning. "What's wrong with you?"

"I changed my mind," Shiro said, words weighted with sinister amusement. "Let's talk now."

He rushed toward Keith again, but this time Keith was ready. He tossed his sword to his right hand and spun himself only to artfully met Shiro's hit, their eyes clashed in a kind of equalized rage Keith had never expected to have transpire between them.

_I think we have grounds to consider the possibility that he's not stable, and you're his main outlet._

"I know who your father is," Shiro said tauntingly, and they broke the hold with a cruel sheen of metal. "I've known the whole time."

Keith regained his footing and fearlessly threw himself at Shiro, trying to think through a plan that would knock Shiro to his knees, to his senses. Something was wrong in the way that Keith was positive this wasn't Shiro. He reached up to open the transmission to the others, but he realized he'd let his guard down and removed his helmet.

He shot a look toward his helmet and angrily screamed when Shiro kicked it toward the hangar where the Black Lion sat, motionless.

"Almost twenty years ago, the Galra Empire sought to expand its hold on the universe, even in places it hadn't started to conquer. By tactically examining lifeforms throughout the universe, they narrowed down the species they could successfully breed with. Humans, being the top contenders, was the first on the list."

"Shut up!"

Shiro paused his thought when Keith decided he didn't want to hear anymore. The Red Paladin targeted Shiro's arm, but forgot how Shiro was a well-rounded fighter. Using his legs, Shiro swiped beneath Keith and then reached for his arm to fling him back. Keith caught himself, sliding backward in a crouched position, his sword making sparks along the floor.

"Earth is rich with minerals and the very material that makes quintessence powerful. They artificially inseminated thousands of human beings with their top warriors as a means to stake their claim on both the race and alliance to the planet."

Keith hissed, animal-like in his Galra state.

"That dagger of yours?" Shiro continued. "That's royal property."

Shiro's allusion clicked into place.

Keith pressed his palm to his temple and shook his head. He remembered his teen mother. He had pictures of her in the hospital, giving birth to a healthy—albeit slightly underweight—baby boy. Having dropped out of high school to have him, she'd penned him a letter about how much she loved him, even if she was angry she'd had him so young.

He still had it pressed inside a book alongside his first snapshot with Shiro.

 _Human_ —he'd been raised human.

Keith loved humanity. He loved love, and he saw the universe as so much bigger than himself, even if sometimes, he was frustrated there wasn't more to himself as an individual.

"I'm not Galran!" Keith screamed at Shiro. "I won't choose them over everyone else."

"You're a _prince_ ," Shiro yelled back, voice dissolving into something unnervingly unlike his own. Keith tried to recall where he'd heard it before. The acrid feminine nature of it was sending chills up his spine. "You _will_ come back to us."

Haggar.

Shiro's voice broke, and he screamed as the man Keith knew. Shiro hit his knees and cradled his face, arm sparking pink and convulsing. Keith didn't dare step closer to the threat, but he eyed his helmet in the distance. He needed help. He needed the other Paladins. Shiro was powerful enough to kill them all if he wanted to.

Within the hangar, there was an explosion. Keith unsteadily withstood the aftershock, but he ran for the source of impact. Evading Shiro the best he could, he entered the well-lit room and scooped up his helmet, jerking it on. Behind him there were rapidly approaching footsteps, and Keith whirled himself to the side before Shiro's arm could shove itself through his chest.

He smelled smoke.

"Don't do this!" Keith screamed at him. "Shiro, this isn't you!"

Shiro's eyes flickered from yellow to steely grey. In the background, Keith could hear Lance, Hunk and Pidge screaming for him to update them on what was happening. Allura attempted to override the transmission, but it suddenly turned to dead static.

"Keith." Shiro raggedly panted. His eyes suddenly solidified as yellow. " _Run_."

A second explosion emitted from overhead, and Keith felt the gravity shift. The explosion had caused a chemical reaction, and green flames appeared from the ground-level explosion and the one overhead. Keith watched as the room was engulfed, and Shiro jerked his gaze upward before looking at Keith like a feral creature ready to devour him inside out.

"Keith," Lance said, voice scattered from interference and breathless from fear. "Keith, get out of there. Allura said it's going to blow. I'm sorry for what I said. We need you. Just get out, buddy. I'm _sorry_."

"This part of the castle is going to blow," Keith warned Shiro. He wasn't sure what'd happened to the force field, but he had a feeling Shiro had something to do with its desertion.

"Come with me," Shiro ordered. His voice continued to drift between his and Haggar's, but his tone was Shiro. "We'll figure it out. We'll get out of this together."

It was like being torn in two.

The universe or Shiro.

"117-9875," a voice rang from a transmission device in Shiro's prosthetic arm. "We're detonating the Black Lion's wing of Castle Lion. You have thirty seconds to escape through the pods we've lodged into the side. Has the target been detained?"

Shiro and Keith stared one another down. After a long pause, Shiro brought his wrist to his mouth. "No, but he understands his objective and alliance to the Galran Empire. I'll be returning to Emperor Zarkon with a full report."

"Then the mission is failed."

"A subjective opinion, sir."

"We will see," the voice countered.

Nothing followed.

Shiro dropped his wrist and stepped toward the green blazes, eyes soaking in Keith's form as he weathered the burden on his heart.

"If you leave now, then I'll never follow you again!" Keith screamed.

Shiro turned his back to him, green flames framing the man's broad figure. The smoke curled around him in a silver swirl that had the audacity to prettily gleam between them.

"You will," Shiro said, words hard and final.

He continued ahead, striding toward the Galran escape pod. Keith reached for his sword and thought to go after him, but that strange purr from before made him stop in his tracks.

"Shiro, don't go."

_Don't go where I can't follow._

_Not again._

Keith watched the man he loved drift toward the inferno, confident in his decision to leave behind Voltron. He listened as the door opened and Shiro let himself inside, fully comfortable with making his safe escape and leaving Keith to deal with the blast.

Death was not an option, not even a secondary thought.

Keith looked around for anything, even considering the second escape pod up top, but something caught the corner of his eye. With Shiro gone, the Black Lion stood alone, towering over the hangar in a silence that didn't feel all that quiet. Keith stepped toward the robot.

The purring shot through his chest like a roar. Keith's body shifted downward, suddenly burdened by the purpose of a ten thousand year war. It was an experience entirely unlike him meeting the Red Lion, and Keith pushed his palm to his forehead as he endured the rush of a prismatic overview of the universe. Constellations, planetary rings, the multicolored clouds embracing obscure planets; all things so many other Black Paladins had experienced. 

The Black Lion's eyes blared to life and sent a creamy glow through the accumulating smoke. Keith didn't notice when the red on his uniform turned to black.

Catching his breath, Keith's eyes traveled upward. 

"Hey," he said, the word soft and airy. He sadly smiled, knowing full well what this meant for him; what this meant for Shiro. He gritted through tears. "Look, we don't have a lot of time— "

The lion lowered its head and dropped its jaw. Another roar sparked from his chest, and the the Black Lion knelt for him.

Keith noticed how the weight of his red sword disappeared, and with a hard swallow, the Black Paladin entered his lion.


	7. ERROR

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was either update here or make y'all wait two to three weeks for a 20,000 word update, so we're here. Also, don't get too messed up about the klance tag. I won't say more there, but yeah.

In his psychology class, they'd talked about the idea of death without a body. The human psyche clings to the concept that, in order to move on, one must personally dispose of the remains. As if to say, 'I'm cleaning up this mess. I'm putting the house back in order.'

It's called ambiguous loss.

There are different kinds of death. There's irreversible cessation of electrical activity in the whole brain, and then there's the kind where you've slammed a hammer against the mirror of the person's soul and shaken them until every shard is face down on the floor.

Keith wasn't sure if he was dying or if he'd killed Shiro.

Maybe Shiro had killed himself. Maybe Shiro had been murdered.

In the immediate moment, the how didn't matter. The fact was Shiro was gone, and Keith had no body to give his teammates, except his own.

The transmission between Keith and Shiro had been live. Keith hadn't been there to see his teammates grit through Shiro's parting, but when he returned to the control room, he saw the wear on their faces. Eyelids heavy and mouths agape as they settled into their shock, they stared at the new Black Paladin with roiling disbelief, a kind of betrayal teetering on the edge of frenzy.

"Where'd he go?" Pidge asked, face screwed up and hardened by necessity.

Her father, Matt, and now, Shiro...

"I'm not sure," Keith admitted. His eyes were still red from crying. "But I think it's safe to say he was a sleeper agent."

"There's _no way_ Shiro would betray Voltron," Lance tried. "Something else had to have— "

"Keith's in the Black Paladin armor," Pidge said, too clipped for comfort. "The Black Lion wouldn't pick someone else unless it was sure its Paladin was gone."

"But he's not dead. He's gone. He's not _dead_ ," Lance countered. He dropped down into Pidge's face. "Keith _can't_ be the Black Lion. Who's going to man the Red Lion now? And what about the Black Lion being a patient and balanced leader? Keith can't pluck his eyebrows without losing his cool. We're gonna end up getting killed out there."

 _Asshole_ , Keith thought.

"Shiro might not be dead, but he's dead to the cause. He left us. You heard Keith. You heard the _transmission_." Pidge reached out for the front of Lance's shirt, but Lance smacked his grip onto her forearm.

"Guys, guys," Hunk tried, too upset to balance them. "Come on. Not now."

Keith dropped the red Bayard and helmet and charged toward the two Paladins. He shoved a palm between them and tore them apart, a hand on each chest. He looked between the two, and his heart drummed when both gawked at him in surprise.

"Save it. Now isn't the time to tear each other apart. We're already down a team member, and we can't form Voltron until we find someone to pilot Red. We've never needed each other more. If we fall apart now, then all of this has been for nothing."

"He's not dead," Lance repeat, but this time, his words were vacant. "I looked up to him. I wanted to be him. Shiro wouldn't…"

Keith opened his mouth, ready to tell Lance he wasn't the only one suffering. After all, Shiro had been his partner for years. Instead of inserting himself into Lance's pain, Keith stopped himself and reached for Lance's shoulder. With a furrowed brow, he squeezed the muscled flesh and softened his gaze into one of understanding.

"You're more than enough as yourself."

Lance shook his head and covered his eyes with a hand while he hugged himself with his other arm.

Keith let him go, and he turned toward Allura in hopes of finding guidance. She too was fighting tears.

_Go after Shiro. Go after Shiro. Go after Shiro._

_Go after Shiro. Go after Shiro. Go after Shiro._

_Go after Shiro. Go after Shiro. Go after Shiro._

_Go after Shiro. Go after Shiro. Go after Shiro._

_Go after Shiro. Go after Shiro. Go after Shiro._

"Allura," Keith said, and he strode toward the helm. "We need to go somewhere where Zarkon can't reach us. We need to regroup."

_Go after him._

Keith continued.

"If we don't leave now, then we'll be overpowered. Zarkon will take the lions. After that, he'll hunt us down until he can either imprison us or we're dead and replacements are found. Shiro knows our secrets, our personal weaknesses, and he knows the castle."

_Save Shiro._

Facing the control panel, Allura swallowed and reached with both hands to rub the back of her neck. She eventually looked to Keith, and her eyes uncertainly searched his face.

He knew she was terrified of the idea of him being the Paladins' leader, and he couldn't blame her. Her stare darted toward Coran who was solemnly letting them make their own decisions. When Coran didn't dare reach out with commentary, Keith knew it was up to them.

Allura cleared her throat and righted her shoulders. "Right. We'll go to the end of the known universe. When we get there, then we'll decide what to do."

Hunk rolled his jaw and breathed out a wet gurgle; a defiant, mournful sound. Tears dropped from his eyes like heavy weights, and he looked toward the floor. Lance carefully reached for his friend's shoulder. The movement gave away his tremble.

"Seats," Keith ordered, but the word was empty.

He turned with the Red Paladin's chair in mind, but he stopped himself. The Black Paladin's was directly in front of him, facing Keith like a lost throne. He stared down its emptiness, and for a second, he saw Shiro there, smiling and encouraging his teammates with his level compliments. Keith saw bright grey eyes, heard his rare laughter and then that exasperated sigh.

Keith wasn't sure he could survive this again.

A scathing memory of him jokingly sitting in the Black Paladin's seat returned. It'd been after hours, the ship's Altean day cycle long since having shifted to night. Shiro had been restless—another night terror—and Keith had suggested they take a walk.

They'd found themselves in the control room. Keith had plopped down in Shiro's seat and animatedly spread his legs.

_You look good there._

_Not as good as you do._

_We could debate that._

He wanted to wring the memory dry.

Keith cautiously walked toward the chair, and with the eyes of the other Paladins burning through his bones, he lowered himself. Keith leaned forward between his knees and brushed back his hair with both hands. He told himself not to cry, so he didn't.

Allura dragged the speechless team through a wormhole. When they entered an empty stretch of space on the other side, the reality of things trickled over each one of them.

"I can't believe it," Hunk muttered to himself and stood. He left the control room. 

In the armory, Keith shucked off his armor one piece at a time. Upon closer inspection, he found the black color ill-fitting, and to him, laughable. His identity had ingrained itself in Red; impulsive and reflexive. Being the Black Paladin took the idea and inverted it. He didn't know how to negotiate himself. He didn't know how to be the person his friends needed him to be.

No one spoke when they went their separate ways from the armory. Keith had expected more questions and possibly even the hope they could still save Shiro, but the idea didn't pass through anyone's lips. Shiro had been their beacon of hope.

The one thing that didn't change with being the Black Paladin was that his bedroom was still his bedroom.

Wearing only his undersuit, Keith opened the sliding door to his room and stepped into the darkened space. Lit with a single lamp, it expanded before him like a stormy sea. The door shut behind him and his throat closed.

He was choking.

Keith opened his mouth and squeezed his eyes tight. Tears pricked, and he exhaled hard over and over. The hyperventilation set in, and he clenched his teeth until his gums throbbed. Keith pressed the heels of his palms to his eyes and strode halfway across the room before slowly crumbling down. Seated in the center of the room, legs crossed and elbows on his knees, he started to rock in between his hard gasping. He refused to uncover his face, even when his hands became wet and he couldn't breathe through his nostrils.

Rage was the impulse.  
He quieted that.

Heartache was the impulse.  
He fought that.

Reconsidering Shiro's offer was the impulse.  
He took that by the throat.

_Find the incongruence between believe, worship and faith. While he gave, you could only take (so much). There is a difference between an offering plate and sticking your hand in a dish of self-hate._

_Who is the monster?_

Keith slammed both palms down beside himself and forced himself to his feet. He numbly dressed for bed, but he couldn't stop deep breathing. He told himself that, after he woke up, then he'd know what to do. In that moment, all he could think about was tracking Shiro down to scream in his face and beg him to explain himself. Answers; that's all he wanted.

Had everything meant nothing?

The sensation was lodged behind his sternum, wriggling and furious. He would've gladly allowed his chest to combust against the wall, guts and all. Temporary gore was better than having to trek through more pain, more isolation, more goodbyes.

Keith crawled onto his bed, and he settled on his side. There he hid his face with stacked arms and tightly balled fists. There were plenty of reasons to keep living, and he reminded himself that defending the universe was the most important one. He thought about his friends, he thought about how Shiro had kissed him before the oncoming fleet, and he thought about dying.

_Sleep. Please, God. Let me sleep._

He didn't wake to an alarm or the artificial morning.

It was the sensation of someone climbing onto the mattress. The initial thought was that the day before had been a nightmare. Shiro had never abandoned Voltron, and they were fighting the good fight against the Galra Empire. They were in bed together. Things were okay.

Reality cruelly snapped back.

The familiar grunt told him it was Lance. Keith scrunched his nose and pushed himself onto his elbow. The position lasted ten second before he collapsed back down and hid his face.

"You've been out of it for twelve hours," Lance said as quietly as he could. "Just making sure you're still breathing, and you know, not dead."

Keith didn't budge, but he finally opened his eyes.

"He didn't come back, did he?"

Lance cleared his throat and reached for Keith's shoulder. "Awesome pilot or not, we're too far for him to find us in twelve hours."

Keith peered through his fingers at the wall beside his bed and tugged the blanket over his shoulder. His fingers touched Lance's knuckles, but he didn't move them. Lance's fingers twitched and then turned upward to face the ceiling. The tips of their fingers laced, and Keith shifted his head to bury his face into his pillow. He deep breathed to keep himself calm.

Lance asked, "How long were you two like _that_?"

Keith figured it didn't matter anymore.

"We met almost a year after I was accepted into Galaxy Garrison. Before the Kerberos Mission, we'd talked about using the money from the exploration to buy a place together."

Lance's fingers slackened, but he suddenly pushed their grip deeper together. He squeezed Keith's hand, and Keith paused as he thought through the gesture. He eventually squeezed back until his knuckles burned white.

"Is that why you washed out? Because they told you he was dead?"

Keith couldn't directly answer the question. "He was the first home I remember having."

Lance took that as the 'yes' it was and settled in behind Keith. Again, Keith didn't jerk away from him, not even when Lance wrapped his arm around Keith and tugged him against his chest. Lance buried his face into the top of Keith's head, and they laid there in silence for a long moment. The peace enveloped them, and Keith realized he hadn't stopped squeezing Lance's hand since they'd first fully laced fingers. He reached back with his free hand and held the back of Lance's head, entirely twisting them together.

"Shiro was the first person who made me feel like I was good at what I do," Lance admitted, voice thick from the crying he was fighting. "He said he was proud of me. No one at the Garrison even pretended to be proud of me the way he did."

"Shiro didn't pretend."

"He pretended to be one of us."

_He pretended to love you._

They were quiet again.

"Are you scared?" Lance eventually asked. The sincerity in the question stopped Keith from snapping. "If I were the Black Paladin after Shiro, then I'd be scared shitless."

"I thought I knew what it meant to be scared," Keith whispered. "This is a different kind of scared."

Fate, Magic and Science weren't kind advisors, and they left little to guide the other Paladins on.

Untimely Paladin departure was unheard of. Shiro being gone left Castle Lion in a state of apprehension. No one knew where to begin or end, but something in Keith's chest told him that decision was on him. He needed to make a plan before days started to run into one another and grief turned them to sitting ducks.

Eventually, he called a meeting.

"We need a Red Paladin," Allura insisted, seated across from Keith. "Zarkon is expecting us to go after Shiro the way you went after me. We can't even try to sway Shiro without Voltron."

They were seated in the lounge, drinks in hand and armor on for no real reason. It was a habit they'd picked up after the war reached its current boiling point. Regular clothing felt too free, and Keith wore his mainly for the comfortable weight.

Keith rubbed the side of his neck. "Is there any way to dowse for a pilot?"

"Dowse?" Allura asked, incredulous.

"Yeah, like…" Hunk paused and grabbed his makeshift chopsticks. He loosely crossed them so they could sway back and forth. "People used to search for things like gravesites and groundwater using dowsing rods. The idea was that if they were close to the source, then they'd cross. Scientifically speaking, it's not real, but conceptually, it's kind of cool."

"Fascinating yet primitive," Coran said.

Hunk pointed his chopstick at the Altean. "Exactly."

Allura hesitated on the idea. "I don't know. I suppose we could check the database for any information regarding lost Paladins. It's worth a shot. For all we know, the answer to our problems could be right under our noses. Pidge, Hunk, will you help me?"

The pair glanced between one another.

"Sure," Pidge said.

Hunk gave a noncommittal shrug. "Why not? Beats sitting around here and crying."

"Let me give the old library a go," Coran offered and he stood up, hands on his hips. "Probably full of dust. King Alfor's collection of ancient texts hasn't been touched since before you were born, Princess. Might even be a bit of fun to revisit."

Lance nudged Keith who stood up.

"I'm going to—" Keith hesitated, knowing he was supposed to be a leader. He glanced up at the expectant crowd. His eyes shifted to the side for a split-second, but he swallowed the anxiety. "I need to do research on the Black Paladin. Lance, help me."

"Do _what_? We can't read Altean."

"You can carry books. Coran can read."

"Then what're you going to do?"

" _Think_."

Lance lifted a hand, squinted at Keith and then exhaled with a shoulder drop.

The south wing held the king's collectables. Coran led Lance and Keith down the main stretch, and when they entered the seemingly endless pale blue room, Keith rubbed his temples. There were so many books, and to be frank, he hadn't enjoyed them much in school unless they were on chemistry. Along the endless spread of shelves were volumes wearing spines speckled with glowing diamond-shaped lights in various colors. Mingling throughout the shelves were displays, and Keith paused to inspect a tiny levitating statue encapsulated by clear gel.

"How have we never been in here before?" Keith asked. The ceilings were high enough that his voice echoed.

"Don't really know," Coran answered with a shrug. "Never thought you'd be interested in Altean history and relics. Between you and me, they're basically paperweights."

"Can we turn on a light or something?" Lance muttered, squinting through the dimness. "We're not going to be able to read in this."

"Absolutely not. Some of these books are light sensitive. If we flipped them on, then the ink would disappear right off the page. Can't take any risks."

"Great. Just great," Lance muttered. "A farsighted Paladin sounds safe."

They both ignored him.

Books featuring the Paladins were coded by their Paladin colors. As the trio swiftly strode through row after row, Keith noticed there were plenty of books labeled in red, yellow, green and blue, but finding any with black was a nightmare.

"They're there somewhere!" Coran eventually called from the top of a ladder. He'd been listening to Keith grunt and groan for an hour before chiming in. "Just keep looking. Seems King Alfor didn't have much of a system."

"Cool," Keith grunted to himself and continued to stride down a seemingly endless row of books.

His shoulders were tight, neck hurting from how he'd tossed and turned the night before, and the dark was making his fatigue set in. Right when he was about to call it quits and join Allura, Pidge and Hunk with their database search, something caught his eye. He rubbed the side of his head and assumed he was seeing things, but when he checked again, Keith understood he'd been correct in his observation.

At the far end of the row, settled within the shadiest depths of the library, sat another display. Like the levitating statue protected by gel, a black and purple book hovered within its jelly enclosure. Entirely black, its binding spine was purple, not the black glow he'd been searching for. Keith checked behind himself to see if Lance and Coran had noticed, but he was alone.

The front of the display held a date on a blue holographic screen. Dates were one of the few things in Altean Keith had taught himself.

The date was only a few weeks old.

Keith furrowed his brow and reached to touch the gel. He expected a shock, but nothing happened. Reaching, he slowly pushed his fingers through the membrane and grabbed the book. He cautiously extracted it.

The date changed to that day.

Someone had read the book recently, but Keith let that thought drift. He carried the massive text to the nearest table and carefully flipped it open. The pages were so thin it felt as if he were sorting spider webs. It reminded him of the Bible.

Keith couldn't read the Altean, but the book was copiously illustrated; pictures of the Black Lion, original Black Paladin armor and then portraiture of old Black Paladins spanning through all races. He noticed there was occasionally a repeat in races, all of which looked related.

When he spotted Zarkon, Keith nearly tore a page. He turned to the next sheet and was faced with a blank sheet. It was for him. He was Zarkon's parasitic afterthought.

He tried not scream.

Keith was prepared to close the book and take it to Coran for translation, but he spotted something wedged in the back. He turned the page and was surprised to discover a folded piece of stationary similar to what was kept in the Paladins' rooms. Keith slid it free, but before he could open it to read, he realized what he'd found inside the book itself.

The relationship between the Black Paladin and Red Paladin.

It was a blocky illustration of their forms side-by-side, reminding Keith of his time in ancient history and the drawings in the caves near the Garrison. Between their heads was a black geometric symbol reminiscent of a flower. Upon closer inspection, he realized the Black Paladin was holding the Red Paladin's wrist with his right hand.

Keith blinked and then turned the page, but it led into another topic. Disappointed, he turned the stationary over in his hand, and he recognized Shiro's hand writing. Too dark to read, he squinted at the black ink but stopped as soon as he read his name.

 _Keith_ —

"Shiro."

He tucked the letter in his armor and carried the book back to Coran. His hands were sweating inside his gloves when he set the book down on the table near Coran's ever-moving ladder. He prayed it wasn't noticeable.

"There it is!" Coran kicked back his feet and slid down the ladder. He hissed and shook his hands until they cooled. "Good job, Keith…"

"Good job, Keith," Lance mocked from somewhere behind them.

"I found this," Keith said quickly and turned toward the page where he'd discovered the history between the Red and Black Paladins. "I want to know what _this_ means."

"Right, right. That's a bit of a story in itself, really." Coran leaned forward and read the words, eyeball nearly pressed to the page. "Everyone knows that Voltron is some magic and some science. The Black Paladin and Red Paladin have the closest relationship mostly because of the magic part. No one can figure out why, but historically, they've had a habit of being very invested in one another. After all, the Red Paladin is the Black's right hand man—or woman—or whoever comes along that cycle."

"Define _invested_ ," Lance said, appearing beside Keith and setting his arm on the Black Paladin's shoulder. Keith reached up and thoughtlessly held onto Lance's bicep.

"Oh, you know. Best friends, fighting side-by-side with their Bayard swords." He stopped to do a fencing jab, and Keith shifted before he was poked. "Both zooming through space with the greatest respect two soldiers can have for one another. Occasionally lovers—"

Keith and Lance cringed at the word 'lovers.'

"—like Keith and Shiro."

"And I'm done here," Lance announced, pulling away from Keith's grip.

"It's really something," Coran continued as Lance abandoned the library. He read another line. "Oh my— seems they've repeatedly been the rise and downfall of Voltron's Paladins, too. Makes sense, doesn't it? The impulsive and unfastened Red Paladin with the collected and levelheaded Black Paladin. Sounds like a disaster waiting to happen. Only children think opposites attract. The universe sure is young."

Keith stopped at that, and he blinked at Coran who went back to thumbing through the book at lightning speed.

He backed away from the book. "I'm going to go check on Pidge and Hunk. Tell me if you find anything useful."

"Righty-o. I'm sure there's plenty here."

The last thing on his mind was finding the others. Keith needed to go somewhere quiet and do exactly what he'd told Lance he intended to do. He needed to _think_.

Thought came to him in front of the Red Lion.

Keith stood in the hangar with his fists at his side, the letter still hidden across his heart. Around him was the hushed electrical buzz, but there was nothing else. Even his breathing was still.

"I need to know," he started. He wondered if Red could still hear him. "I need to know if what I think is happening is true."

The lion didn't move. It was very much a robot in that moment.

"Is Shiro the new Red Paladin?"

Red, again, didn't move.

Keith exhaled at the lack of clarity and he dragged a hand down his face. Instead of running to the Red Lion with a confrontational punch and scream, Keith walked away. He decided to check in on his friends and see if they'd found anything.

He was disappointed to discover they had not.

For reasons Keith couldn't understand, he couldn't bring himself to open the letter. Not immediately, anyway. Rather, to brace himself for the scathing words he assumed would be inside, he found comfort in something else.

Lance had created the habit of climbing into Keith's bed when everyone was asleep. Though, it didn't change the tone of their day-to-day interaction.

There was a quiet, expected regard for Keith, but Lance didn't pander to it the way Hunk and Pidge sought to. On some level, Lance still saw Keith as the person he'd envied since day one. Keith could tell he clung to that for the sake of preserving normalcy in their group. Not to mention, Lance adamantly didn't want to replace Shiro with Keith.

That evening, Keith anticipated the moment when Lance would let himself in. Like clockwork, as soon as Hunk yelled 'goodnight' down the hallway, Lance appeared. He was wearing the same solemn exterior he hadn't let go of since Shiro had been confirmed a sleeper agent.

Keith wanted to talk to Pidge. Keith wanted to talk to Hunk.

Lance was the only one proving to be accessible.

"Awake?" Lance asked and sank down beside him.

Lance sprawled with a dead drop.

Keith nodded, and he didn't react when Lance flattened his hand against his abdomen. Lance brought Keith's spine against his chest, and Keith sighed at the contact. He knew neither one of them would've done this had they been on Earth. Keith was seeing their social expectations and norms leave them with every passing week. From emotions to personal space, the Paladins were becoming too close.

Keith considered this when Lance pressed his mouth to the back of his neck and it felt more like a platonic gesture than a romantic advance. His breath was warm, and it was nice in the cold misery he knew they were both feeling. Keith hated that he was thankful for it.

"You're going to go after him, aren't you?" Lance asked, already knowing the answer.

"I'm considering the risk. Losing one Paladin is bad enough."

Lance grabbed Keith's chin and turned his face so they could look at one another through the dark. "You act like we'd let you go alone. I know it's hard for you, but don't be an idiot."

His Galran stare unflinchingly bore into Lance's gaze, and Keith reached for Lance's neck as if to choke him. The Blue Paladin didn't flinch. He didn't even blink.

Hand still on Lance's throat, Keith refused to stop his teammate when he lowered his head and their mouths melded together.

_Keith—_

_When you find this, and I know you will because you've never ceased to amaze me, I want you to know that things will be okay. Even though I'm gone, I'm trying to…_


	8. ERROR

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is so long. I wanted to go into Keith's relationship with the other Paladins, but also, world build because it's something I'm working on right now.
> 
> But seriously, thank all of you so much for commenting and those who've worked to discuss the plot points with me via comments. It means so much, and it's kept me pushing through this as fast as I can on top of working. I appreciate all of the insight and theories, and it's why I've worked so hard to reply to everyone. I know it can be nerve-racking to leave behind anything, let alone massive paragraphs.
> 
> I'm writing this for you all and not just me, myself and I.
> 
> Anyway, have fun with this hellscape.

_Keith—_

_When you find this, and I know you will because you've never ceased to amaze me, I want you to know that things will be okay. Even though I'm gone, I'm trying to make this right. After I escaped and returned to Earth, I knew I was the only one connected to the Galra Empire in a way that could take them down from the inside out._

_I know everything about them. I've experienced things none of the other Paladins could understand (should have to understand), and now, I know Voltron. I'm not as strong as you and the others want to believe I am, and if the time comes that you see that for yourself, then don't be afraid to do the right thing._

_The universe is so much bigger than the ones we love. Find the fine line between autonomy and philanthropy and drag your foot across it. I promise things become so much smaller when space is the thermosphere and not the unfound planets in your head and heart._

_This book explains the reason you were drawn out to the canyons. It explains why you knew something was going to happen the night we discovered the Blue Lion._

_You were always meant to be the Black Paladin._

_I was always meant to be the Red Paladin._

_Even at the expense of loving one another._

_When this is over—if you ever grow tired—then come find me._

_I'll be waiting for you._

_Shiro_

Keith was seated deathly still in front of the training deck's window. In his hands was the letter, and to his left rested the black Bayard. He blinked at the cold nothingness that blanketed what he could only then conceptualize as 'existing.'

Wait—not nothingness, not cold.

He leaned closer and pressed his gloved palms to the glass. Planets with their distant suns phased past him, and he thought about the warmth of his home planet. The way he let the sun bake layers of skin off his shoulders, and how when Shiro warmly kissed him in the desert's cool night air, he understood the sheer enormity of what it meant to be alive, to love, to feel.

It was his job to preserve the possibility for that to continue.

Keith backed away from the window, and he stood. He reached for the black Bayard and coaxed his armor to return it to storage.

He knew what he had to do.

Prompted by Keith's uncertain voice grating across the PA system, the Paladins gathered in the control room. Keith stood with his helmet pressed to his hip, and he lifted the letter, wearing a neutral expression. They each stared at him with an expectant gaze, and Keith dropped it at his side with a soul-mangling exhale. He pocketed the piece of paper.

"Shiro left a letter."

Three heads turned, not including Allura and Coran who were watching Keith's back like steel. Hunk raised a finger, thought to say something, but he let the hand fall back to his hip. Pidge looked to the sliver of space Keith had wedged the letter into, and she glanced to Lance who was staring Keith in the face, unreadable but grave.

"What does it say?" Pidge asked. "Shouldn't you read it to us or let us read it?"

Hunk shrugged with a soft 'eh.'

"Unless it's a love letter, which we all know it probably is. That's how these things go in movies. Every other supporting character is forgotten for the romantic lead, and people such as myself, Lance and you, are somehow convinced that their exclusionary power of love is enough to save us from a 10,000 yearlong war. Those always end up to be the real tearjerkers."

Keith ignored that. "It basically says Shiro's a double agent."

Allura darted to Keith's side and yanked the letter free from his armor. Keith immediately lunged. Swiftly, she stepped away from the startled Black Paladin and managed to hold Keith back with a single hand pressed to his head. He clawed and reached with a muffled scream.

"I can't believe this," Allura whispered as she read. She brought the letter close to her chest and looked between Coran and the other Paladins. "Shiro's going to try and dismantle the Galra Empire by himself."

Coran wheezed at the thought. "Funny how you humans always seem to forget you're made out of _flesh and bones_. Both of which are very weak stuff last time I checked."

"Sounds like he's more unstable than we thought," Lance said, words more matter-of-fact than condescending. "What're we going to do? He's going to need us."

Hunk added, "I'm pretty sure we just had the conversation that facing Zarkon without Voltron _again_ was a bad idea. This is a personal opinion, but maybe we should stop going with the bad ideas. Last time, we ended up in a wormhole, separated and Shiro almost died. Man, he's getting _really_ good at that. Keith, you're his boyfriend. Has that come up? I think it needs to."

"Shiro isn't my boyfriend."

Hunk chortled to himself and patted his chest before swiping free an exaggerated tear.

Pidge inspected her nails and sighed, loudly.

Lance scratched a piece of his breakfast from his teeth and lifted both eyebrows, but he didn't comment.

Keith was still fighting Allura's one arm. He yelled in frustration and jerked back in defeat, eyeing the letter she wasn't ready to return.

"What's this book he's talking about?" Allura asked. She parted her lips in realization. "Keith, how long have you had this letter?"

"Only, like, a couple days," he muttered. "I found it in the Black Paladin book in the library."

"Right!" Coran said, startling everyone. "About that—I took some interesting notes while I was translating for you. Really can't get the nuances unless you're a native speaker, I think. Just a moment, everyone."

Coran disappeared and Allura thrust the letter back at Keith. "Personal or not, Keith. You cannot keep information like this from us ever again. Do you understand? It's the Black Paladin's job to ensure the safety of everyone, no matter the relationship politics."

"That's not why I kept it," Keith said. He reminded himself not to snap, but he jerked the letter from her hand. "If I'd brought it to you as soon as I found it, then I would've wanted to act on impulse. I'm trying not to do that anymore. I had to _think_."

"He is so gritting his teeth," Hunk whispered to the others. "Control. Right there."

"He's doing his best," Pidge said, and she stuck a finger into her ear to scratch. "Keith, what's the plan?"

"The _plan_ ," Coran interrupted as he reappeared, "is to listen to me before we get ourselves up to our ears in Galra ships."

Holding a tablet, Coran ran his fingers along a small holographic screen and a series of wall-sized blue screens appeared in front of the Paladins and Allura. There was an image of Keith as a human—a sight he regularly missed—and then an image of Shiro. He couldn't help but notice how the portraits weren't facing one another, and he wondered if that was intentional or just happenstance. He told himself he was probably overthinking the imagery and let the thought die when the archaic illustrations from the book popped up beneath Shiro and him.

"We don't really know a lot about why the Black and Red Paladins can switch ranks and lions, but it seems to be entirely based on disposition and timing in the Paladins' life. Second in command must step up if the Black Paladin is deceased, or as we see currently, traitorous."

"Shiro isn't a traitor," Keith tried. No one corrected him, but no one wholly believed him either. He cleared his throat and knew he had to divulge. "When we were fighting in the hangar, I heard Haggar's voice, but before he turned on me, Shiro asked me to run away with him."

"What—" Lance tried to cut in, but Keith shot him down with a look.

Keith ran both hands through his hair and sucked in a breath that seemed to revive him. He straightened his shoulders. "Shiro didn't want to go with them. Shiro didn't want to _fight_ , period. Something's not adding up. He needs our help. If he's the Red Paladin, then no one _can_ replace him because he's not a traitor and he's _not_ dead."

Coran squinted at Keith and hummed. "I have a theory that Shiro was never meant to be the Black Paladin long term."

"He mentioned that in the letter," Allura said, words soft and thoughtful. "Shiro never did have a striking connection to the Black Lion. It just was."

"Red was mine," Keith tried, and he flitted his gaze to the side. "I proved myself to my lion. I did exactly what the Red Paladin is supposed to do…"

Allura was quick with her counter. "It could have saved you from space because you are everything to the Red Paladin. Shiro asked you to leave Voltron with him, Keith."

_Hardly everything._

"Not to be the downer, but that sounds like a reach," Lance said. His hardened tone was indicative of plenty.

Lance appeared beside Keith and rubbed his face with a hand, staring past Allura's head and digging his sights into Shiro. Keith glanced at the Blue Paladin, and there was a lapse in the moment where he could see the _age_ on Lance. The jaw he'd rubbed wasn't the smooth, boyish skin he remembered wishing he could hit. It was flecked with stubble and his voice was beginning to grate. His eyes were dimmed, no longer alive with the joy of piloting and fighting, and all of them had been weathered by the reality of their mortality. They were entering their twenties. They were getting older. This was their _life_.

He continued, "This lore is cool and all, but all I'm hearing is that Shiro's not going to be able to be replaced, and no matter what, we won't be able to form Voltron."

"Lance is right," Keith said. "We need to find out where Zarkon's been hiding for the past few months. Before Shiro left, he mentioned going to Zarkon himself. When we find somewhere to land for parts to fix the Black Lion's hangar—"

"Again," Hunk breathed.

"—then we need to see if that escape pod has the coordinates to Zarkon."

"It's junked from the explosion," Pidge said, and she rubbed her forehead with two fingers. "Never mind. I can do it."

"I know you can," Keith encouraged, and he paused when he heard the echo of Shiro's voice ricocheting off his tone. He inhaled. "Once we find the coordinates, then we're going to find Shiro. He needs to know we're not giving up on him. He's never given up on any of us."

"Wait just a second," Coran snapped. "There's a reason I said you needed to listen to me first. The other Paladins don't understand what's happening, Keith."

Keith stopped and watched the screen change.

There was the black flower again. Keith had almost forgotten about it. The images of Shiro and himself started to glitch behind it as the geometric blossom unfurled, eventually wilting. Their faces turned to dead static, and in their place, two more pictures appeared.

They were of young Zarkon and King Alfor.

"There was a page ripped from the book," Coran began. "But I was able to track it down in the very pits of the archive. Seems like it was misplaced a while ago. I think by Zarkon."

"That's why it was short," Keith said and stepped closer to the screen.

Lance grabbed his shoulder.

"The emotional stability of Voltron heavily depends on the relationship between the Red and Black Paladin. This, as we discussed, Keith, is the hardest to maintain. Voltron is the strongest weapon in the known universe, and the relationships built within it can be powerful in more ways than to help the greater good."

Coran swiped to the next screen, and when Keith saw the Red Paladin's mangled form, he flinched. In the background of the picture, the Black Paladin was missing his right hand and gazing over split planetary bodies, eroding stars.

"This tie might be what Zarkon was running from. Maybe he got it in his head that the connection was too great of an expectation. He felt he had no control over himself or his life without King Alfor, so he turned his back on all of it to assert himself as emperor." Coran held his chin and stared at the late Paladins. His other arm crossed over his chest. "Even before the princess was born, I recall there being animosity between the king and Zarkon, but they were once very close. Zarkon was what I would've called a friend."

"I barely remember them speaking," Allura said. "I was so young, and by then, father had stopped piloting. We were peaceful for so long. Father was such a good diplomat, I never understood how he was the Red Paladin."

Coran raised a finger.

"Your father was a handful before he married your mother. I think you're old enough for me to tell you the story about how Zarkon and he got a little heavy-handed with the Nunvill and nearly burnt the castle to the ground during the Interuniversal Council. Ah— _youth_."

Allura frowned at the thought but slowly fell into a grin.

He cleared his throat, continuing his lecture.

"What I'm trying to say is—the universe depends on the relationships between the Paladins. Only chaos will come from mismanaging this situation. We could be looking at the complete overtaking of the universe if Shiro and you can't come together. There are no other options, Keith. History will repeat itself. Every ounce of magic and science in your lions has its cards pulled in that favor. This didn't begin with King Alfor and Zarkon. It won't end with you and Shiro."

Keith felt every fiber of that solemn weight.

They landed Castle Lion on the nearest peaceful planet where lime green moss grew in the shape of bubbles. Upon inspection, Keith discovered they floated away when prodded, and once popped, expelled purple gas that smelled like sandalwood. The planet was no bigger than Pluto, but its port city specialized in mechanical transfers. Coran had decided it was a good pit stop.

Keith found himself seated in an alien diner with a burger-like sandwich in both hands. Wearing his Paladin armor and chewing like a cow on cud, his eyes were locked onto a pink neon sign that jolted to advertise abstract representations of food. His eyes dragged from the sign and to their waiter who kept staring. He realized being Galra posed him as a threat.  

_"I do love you."_

_"I love you, no matter what I say or do."_

Love, love, love.

"What're you going to do if Shiro doesn't want to come back?" Lance asked.

"Don't talk like that, man," Hunk interrupted before Keith could dig through his head and come up with an answer.

"I just want to know what to expect."

"Expect Shiro to come home," Keith said.

He stood and took his burger with a peace sign. Standing outside, Keith could see Lance and Hunk from behind the glass. Lance was dour, rapidly moving his lips and entirely forgetting his food. Hunk pushed his hovering plate toward him, and when Lance attempted to push it back, Hunk snapped his hand up and caught Lance's chin. He spoke low, serious but then cracked a smile that Lance hesitated on only to return with a wan one of his own.

Hunk mouthed three words to Lance. Keith took a hard bite from his sandwich and walked back to the castle. He wasn't sure how he felt. He only knew he had no immediate opinion.

Keith found Pidge and Coran pulling apart the escape pod behind the castle. Seated on the ground and rapidly typing with cords hooked to the charred spacecraft, she was biting her tongue when she raised a hand in greeting. Keith shoved his unfinished burger into her hand.

"Thanks," she said and took a sharp bite. She spoke through a full mouth. "Right. So. It looks like this thing was headed toward a planet in the Abell 1835 IR1916 galaxy."

"You found it already?"

"It wasn't that hard. Looks like they assumed the explosion would destroy this thing. There were zero locks on its specs and its coordinates were wide open. I know where it's been since the moment it was built two years ago."

Coran appeared from behind the pod, ashy parts in hand. "It's a bit of a junker. Cheaply made."

"Good job, Pidge," Keith said and crouched down beside her to look at the screen. "Then we can head there after the hangar's repaired."

"We should have Allura drag the planet through inspection, first," Coran said and pointed at Keith. "Can't have you flipping inside out again."

"I doubt a Galra-based planet is going to be uninhabitable for Galra," Pidge said.

The planet was called Curak, and it was uninhabitable for Galra.

Keith stared at the control room's screen with thinned lips, and Pidge gestured at it before breathing 'really.'

"Typical," Allura sighed and pointed at Keith. "Keep your suit on."

Curak's core wasn't a third of the size of Earth but its exterior was mauve and massive. Its gaseous exterior existed alongside a storm of purple glass that rained like sentient knives, but its interior was essentially terrestrial. With the right research, they discovered the desertscape was marbled with blinding whites and glowing greens gelatinous to the touch. It had three small suns and a colossal blue moon that spun too fast for comfort. As Allura dragged her hand across the planet, she used Pidge's scanning technology to split Curak apart. The inside was barren and lacking enough content for a proper mineral analysis.

Allura hummed. "Getting through the storm is going to be hard enough, but from the looks of it, they've built underground. Otherwise, we'd know exactly what's inside."

"We have to wait for the coating on the hangar to seal," Hunk said and he swung an arm around Keith's shoulders. He pulled his friend close and ruffled his hair. He tugged at a purple ear, and Keith groaned in annoyance, but he followed it with a smile. "We should be good to travel in the morning."

"Thanks for working so hard," Keith said, but giving the compliment caused his face to flush.

"Dude," Hunk began, "you're not the only one who wants to get Shiro home. Don't mention it."

Keith glanced up and spotted Pidge determinedly staring at the virtual Curak. Her expression was stiff and obstinate, but when her brow twitched, Keith frowned. He hardly acknowledged when Hunk reached up to scratch behind one of his Galra ears. Pidge inhaled hard and left the control room without a word, forcing Keith to pat Hunk's chest and pull away. He followed her down the corridor and out the castle's front gates.

The outside was cool and the air clean. Above them was a sky so vivid in its multiple sunsets that it looked like fire was devouring the clouds; red, orange and then the dusty tinge of blue. For a moment, Keith could imagine earth again.

"It's hard," Pidge said without prompting. Keith had assumed she'd known he was there the whole time, but it still startled him. "Dad, Matt—Shiro was the only one he knew them. From the beginning, he tried to make it up to me for leaving them behind. Every time I did something, Shiro let me know I was brilliant and just like them."

Keith stood there in silence, and for once, his brain was quiet and attentive.

"Do you think he'll come back?" Pidge asked, and he heard the waver in her voice. She wetly inhaled, fighting as she always did. The tears were relentless, though. "Not just for you, but for all of us?"

He closed the gap between them and playfully leaned on her shoulder, but it was to mask the fact his eyes were misty, not just from missing Shiro, but an empathetic guilt he couldn't silence.

"He's always put the team first."

"He wanted to run away with you and _only_ you."

Keith couldn't deny that, but he'd been dwelling on it long enough to have an answer. "He's been through a lot, and he thought it helped him to help us. Shiro never took care of himself while being there for us. I should've seen it. His nightmares, how little he talked about _anything_ , and the attacks were getting closer and closer; I—"

_I wasn't good to him._

When his voice broke, Pidge grabbed his arm and held him tight.

"We," Pidge corrected Keith. "We weren't good to him."

Keith rubbed his forehead and sobered himself. "I'm going to be here for you guys. I'm going to be here for all of us and Voltron _and_ the universe."

Pidge clapped their hands together and tightly held Keith's hand. They looked at one another, and she pointedly squeezed it. A gust of wind so similar to the ones he felt while staring across the endless canyons curled its fingers around their hair.

"You're going to be a great Black Paladin."

For a moment, Keith believed her.

They left for Curak the next morning after making sure the hangar's sealant was dry. It was a hushed morning, the weight of that day's mission heavy on all of them. Pidge was busy in her chair, Hunk leaned over her shoulder as they worked on a program to detect Galra ships through their invisibility shields and alter their own so the Galra couldn't detect the lions. Lance was sitting cross-legged in his own chair, running through coordinates and atmospheric changes on Curak while Keith flipped through Coran's notes. Wedged within the notes was Shiro's letter, which was officially Altean and Paladin property.

He'd caught Lance reading it alone in the control room that morning. Neither had said anything to the other about it.

"We're going to call in alliances and have them on emergency standby," Allura said, already contacting the fellow planets and nations Voltron had freed. "We're not going to be able to do this alone. I worry more about escaping with Shiro than actually retrieving him."

Hunk glanced up. "Would they really send the whole army after Shiro?"

Allura's face dimmed. "Shiro once told me they called him their greatest weapon. Keith, stay on your guard with the Black Lion. Zarkon will be prepared to take it and not fail this time."

Keith cleared his throat. "Zarkon will want me with it."

"Possibly," Allura started and she paused as she considered Keith's tone. "Keith—"

"I know who my father is," Keith said before she could ask him to elaborate. "Shiro was on board to retrieve me along with the information on ship. From the looks of it, Zarkon is a fan of the human disposition enough to breed Galra soldiers with unknowing humans."

Allura's eyes widened, suddenly watery and trembling at the thought of what he was implying. Coran looked at her, and the way she was quick to accept it made him wonder if they'd discussed the possibility before. Keith had no way of knowing. He didn't dare look at the other Paladins.

"It doesn't change anything," Keith assured her and tugged his helmet on. "I know who I'm fighting for."

She tried again. "Keith, if Zarkon dies, then you…"

"I can't think about that right now."

On Keith's order—once the invisibility changes were implemented—the Paladins left the bridge to climb into their lions. The Black Lion sat before Keith in all its enormity, and he wondered if the size had terrified Shiro just as much the first time he flew it into battle. Black lowered her head, and when the bottom of her jaw touched the hangar floor, he tightened his hand along the black Bayard's handle. In the opposite hand was the red one, and he glanced over his shoulder at the hangar's emptiness before he climbed inside and took his seat at the control panel.

He felt like an imposter, someone entirely devoid of the right to sit where Shiro had once sat. There was no way around it, though. He signaled for the hangar to open and shakily inhaled while staring into the wide emptiness. In the distance, Curak stood like a spotlight, and all Keith could think about was the fact Shiro was so close to them.

"Once we hide the lions, we're going to break down the invisibility on the surface and find a way into their lair," Keith said, realizing Shiro wouldn't be there to counter him or help. He fought the fear of death and straightened himself up. Keith cracked his neck and shoved his hands forward. "We'll be able to track their thermal outlet and go from there. No one attacks Shiro unless it's a matter of life and death. This is a grab and go mission."

Anger coursed through him like a current of boiling water.

Keith told himself he'd find a way to forgive Shiro.

"Roger that," Hunk said.

The Black Lion raced forward and leapt into space. At his side, the Green, Yellow and Blue Lions appeared. Keith realized the Black Lion wasn't as nimble as the Red Lion, and piloting it required a different kind of concentration he wasn't accustomed to. He closed his eyes, cleared his head and pushed forward to Curak's atmosphere.

"Stay close," Keith snapped. "We need to go in together."

"Be careful, Paladins," Allura called over the headset. "The storm you're about to enter could easily damage your lions. Keep it together."

The Black Lion rumbled in protest against the brutal obstruction of altering gravity. Keith held tight to the handles in front of him as his lion shook, the burning atmosphere being countered by a sudden mauve fog that whipped against them with the clatter of bulleting glass shards. Sweat appeared along his forehead as he sped forward.

"Did we know it was going to be like this?" Lance snapped. "Because a warning would've been kinda nice. Just saying! Not that I can't handle it. I'm fine, but—"

" _We're_ fine!" Keith yelled and leaned forward. "We're almost halfway through."

"And here's another time when I'm pretty sure my Snake Plan is a good idea," Hunk yelled back. The transmission broke for a split-second, but it returned at full quality. "Great."

"Activate the second part of our invisibility," Keith said, voice tight. "Be prepared for a rocky landing, everyone."

"But Prince Keith," Pidge started. She was grinning. "If we mess up even one of our lions, then we won't be able to get it back. Zarkon will take the lion and—"

" _What_ did you call me?"

Lance's braying laughter filled his headset.

Allura sighed. "Get Shiro back. _Please_."

They landed in a pile. Keith had tried his hardest to brake the way he would've with Red, but the Black Lion slammed against the ground and spun on its side. When he stopped, head filling with smog from the brutal contact, the Green Lion collided with him, followed by the Blue, and then by the lack of Grace of God, the massive Yellow Lion dropped onto the rest of them.

Keith groaned and momentarily tugged off his helmet. His nose was bleeding and he leaned his head forward to let it drain.

"Sorry," Hunk murmured and backed his lion off them. "So sorry."

"Should've braked sooner," Keith managed, nasally.

"You actually braked?" Lance asked.

"Just consider this motivation to find Shiro," Pidge said, and Keith swore he heard her neck pop.

Having successfully avoided the few Galra ships on guard, they hid their lions with Pidge's improved shield and piled into the Green Lion to watch her tear through the Galra coding. Seated at her feet, Hunk had his own laptop open, eyes narrowed as the clatter of fingers filled the cockpit. When their screens lit with their individual hacker insignias, they wordlessly high-fived one another and shut their screens at the same time.

Their feed appeared on the lion's screen for Allura who downloaded it and emerged on the telecommunicator as she worked. Only when she finally found something did she pause in shock.

"This planet _is_ the castle. Its interior is practically a city."

"You mean we're standing on a Galra metropolis?" Keith asked.

She opened the city's blueprints for Keith and the rest to see. Keith had been right, and he groaned at the sight of the city's outline, the amount of people wandering the dark streets. He couldn't see the details, but already it was evident the Galra people lived in mostly darkness.

"There are three main entries, but it looks like those are highly guarded and meant for import and export." Allura swung the map around and zoomed in on a purple and black building that stood like a pinnacle among the lower skyscrapers. Its three towers glowed magenta, and they reminded Keith of Shiro's arm when used for battle. She flipped it upside down and suddenly the lions appeared upright on the bottom of the castle. "But there's a sewer system beginning right where you're standing, and it leads into the castle. They have advanced gravitational intercession, so once you're inside the system, it should invert you."

"Is anyone gonna make the 'Zarkon gives us shit' joke?" Lance asked and raised a hand. "Because I am more than willing to point it out."

Keith stepped closer to the screen and watched the silhouette of a Galra child skip.

He scowled, but not at Lance. "They don't keep the Galra people here to keep out intruders. They do it to keep the Galra people in."

Allura frowned, saddened by the thought. "It's honestly probably a little bit of both, Keith. This isn't their original planet, for certain."

"Can we track Shiro?" Pidge asked.

"He's in the lower east wing," Allura said, pointing at the 3D display of the castle the ship had been able to build as they spoke. There was Shiro's dot, meandering down a long corridor. "I can send this map to each of you and guide you through most of it."

"Let's go then," Keith said and righted his helmet.

They accessed the sewer system through a vault Hunk was able to rewire and force open with his sheer strength. It was empty with only the occasional salamander-like creature crawling against the bulbous walls. They were smooth to the touch from years of erosion and glowed green.

The Paladins walked for what felt like hours before Allura spoke up.

"There's another vault overhead. It's around the corner. When you climb through, expect vertigo. You're going to appear in a maintenance room. Shiro is three hallways to the left."

Hunk reached and was able to open the second vault. They were greeted by a roar of mechanical whirring and a hole that seemed to drop down onto a ceiling. Keith blinked and motioned for Hunk to hoist him through first. What Allura had been talking about made itself clear. One second he was standing upside down in the mechanical room, hanging above the ceiling, and suddenly, he was reoriented and right side up, the room balanced as it should be.

Lance popped his head out of the door first, brow lifted as he swiftly looked from left to right. When he was sure the hall was clear, he stepped out and the rest followed him. Twenty foot ceilings hovered above them in a dull grey accented by glowing purple trim. The floors were black, and Keith wondered if the bad guys liked purple because it signified royalty and rich people were typically assholes.

He realized purple probably didn't mean the same thing off earth, and Keith distanced himself from the thought as they jogged toward the first turn.

"I wonder if this is a residential wing," Pidge whispered. "It's quiet and the doors are unprotected."

Lance skidded to a halt and pointed. "What is _that_?"

At the end of the hall, there was a black cloud so dense none of them could see through it. Keith squinted at the isolated fog and he tugged out the black Bayard. He surprised himself when the ornate sword appeared, and he gave it a once over before spinning it with a single hand. For some reason, he remembered it being bigger when Zarkon held it.

Keith approached the cloud with slow steps, his feet softly scraping the floor.

"Look out!" Hunk shouted from behind.

Keith looked away from the cloud and a hand suddenly lunged out to tug him inside. Before the darkness swallowed him, Keith saw his fellow Paladins being swarmed by Galran soldiers. He cried out for them, but another hand, this one cold yet familiar, covered his mouth and jerked him entirely inside. Keith flung his head from side-to-side, throwing back both elbows.

" _What_ are you doing here?"

The voice snapped Keith into total stillness. He reached for the hand covering his mouth and slowly pulled it down.

"Did you think you could take on this whole planet?" Shiro's voice was terse and charred, wearier than usual.

Keith tried to turn around, but Shiro clasped tight to his biceps.

Steps were approaching the cloud, and Shiro suddenly flung Keith to the other end. Keith felt himself phase through something, and he shut his eyes when he hit a wall. Opening them, he realized he was then in a cramped closet, but he wasn't alone. Shiro was there in front of him, listening carefully to what was outside the door. He pressed a palm to Keith's mouth, and when the voices drifted, he looked to Keith.

Keith went to yell, but Shiro pressed his hand a little harder. Shiro's eyes were yellow, illuminating in the dark, and his teeth—the canines were pointed and lethal.

"It's overexposure to druid magic," Shiro explained. He reached and tugged off Keith's helmet, freeing dark tousled hair. Keith inspected his features, seeing his kindness. "It goes away, eventually. I'm not going to hurt you, but I don't know for how long. When the druids find out you're here, then it's going to be another fight I can't control. I don't want to hurt you."

"Too late for that," Keith said, colder than he'd ever recalled being to Shiro.

Shiro blinked at that. "You need to get the other Paladins and _leave_."

"We need to get the other Paladins and leave _together_." So that Shiro couldn't bolt, Keith slammed his foot against the wall in front of the door. He then grabbed the man by the front of his armor and jerked him down. "You don't get to stay on my watch."

Keith realized Shiro was wearing Galra armor.

"You have to listen to me. If Zarkon finds out you're here—"

"I've listened to you since the moment we met, and look at where we are!"

Shiro covered Keith's mouth again to still his yelling. Wordlessly, he pressed his forehead to Keith's, and Keith closed his eyes before making a mournful noise.

"I don't trust you," Keith said from behind his hand, eyes pooling. "I always trusted you."

"I'm sorry."

"You were everything to me, Takashi."

Shiro grit his teeth. "Don't use past tense."

_Tell me what I did wrong.  
Please tell me so that we can fix this._

Shiro grasped onto Keith's elevated knee, but instead of shoving it down, he slid his hand up to his thigh and held him. Keith swallowed and steadied his breathing, which reassured Shiro enough to drop his hand but not move his forehead from Keith's.

"You read the book," Keith tried again, tilting his head so that their mouths were close. "But you didn't see the second page. If Zarkon successfully tears us apart, then he gets the universe. He gets Voltron. This isn't the first time it's happened to the Black and Red Paladins."

"It's not that simple, Keith. They're inside me." Shiro's voice broke in two. "They've hardwired me to be like this to you, and it's worse when they think I'm out of control. I think clearer here. They don't tamper with my head here. I can function here and figure out a way to stop this."

Keith touched the side of his face, and Shiro slid his hand on top of it.

"We'll figure out a way to fight their hold over you on Castle Lion. The Paladins need you. We can't make Voltron without you. We're an easy target now, and what happens if Zarkon takes all of us? He'll kill everyone but you and me. I can't watch my friends die for this."

Shiro hung his head, white bangs swaying. "Keith—"

Keith redirected his face so that he had to look him in the eye. "You're going to kill all of us, Shiro. You're going to take freedom from the universe. This is not the Shiro I know."

"I..."

They stared at one another and Shiro gripped Keith's thigh tighter. Wordlessly, he leaned forward and kissed Keith, disarming the Black Paladin and cupping a side of his throat. Keith tensed at the contact, distrustful, but the apprehension melted when Shiro opened his mouth against his and dissolved into a familiar groan. Keith felt his prosthetic hand go for his other thigh, and Shiro hoisted him up against the wall. Instead of wrapping his arms around Shiro's neck, Keith planted them on top of Shiro's hands to ensure he wouldn't be attacked.

"I'm a broken soldier," Shiro whispered into Keith's mouth, canines sharp against his bottom lip when he pulled on it to suck.

"A broken soldier doesn't want to keep fighting the way you do."

Keith grit his teeth when Shiro rocked against him, and he tilted his head back against the wall, panting in the space with its depleting oxygen and filling body heat. Shiro did it again, rocking harder and making harsh friction, and this time Keith audibly gasped out his name. It sounded as if Shiro were already inside him, giving him what he'd once ached for on Castle Lion. He arched his back against the wall and then squeezed Shiro's hands tighter.

"Stay here with me."

At that, Keith realized they'd been found out.

The Black Paladin slowly let go of one of the hands and then spread his fingers along the side of his armored thigh. Keith's black Bayard appeared, and before Shiro could react, Keith tightened his thighs around the man and lurched forward with the sword, slamming Shiro back against the wall and pressing the sword to his throat.

Shiro's yellow eyes narrowed at him, and he suddenly smugly smiled, arching an eyebrow. The wicked laughter that escaped his throat boomed throughout the closet.

"What have you done to Shiro?"

The being didn't respond, but he continued to laugh. When he'd had his fill of amusement, he suddenly gripped onto Keith's throat with his glowing hand, forcing them into a stalemate.

"You could be the prince to this entire empire, but here you are."

"Where's Shiro?" He pressed the blade to the man's throat, watching as the thin cut excreted the slowest fall of blood.

"Do it, Keith," Shiro's voice said. "Kill me."

Keith froze.

He couldn't get the next word out. They were in the oppressive cloud again, and without warning, he was flung through another wall. Keith landed on his shoulder with a hard thud and rolled, sword in hand. He swiftly went to push himself up onto his feet. 

Down the hallway, Shiro waited with a coaxing finger.

"Matt!" Pidge's scream carried through the halls, blood curdling and terrified.

Keith stared at Shiro's figure at the end of the hallway. Torn only for a second, he wordlessly yelled before slamming his fist to the wall. He didn't notice when his knuckles created a dent.

He reluctantly tugged himself away and ran back toward his teammate, but when he turned the corner, Keith came to a dead halt. There was blood slung across the floor and Pidge was holding their arm, Bayard zapping over and over, causing Pidge to twitch through gritted teeth.

At the end of the hallway, a deformed memory of Matt Holt stood waiting, eyes yellow and mouth foaming black. His left arm was a glowing magenta sword attached to his shoulder.

"Pidge," Keith stammered.

She shook her Bayard until it stopped sparking. "We're going to save him."


	9. ERROR

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more chapter after this.

There's a difference between love as a child and love as an adult. The transitionary period between the two have a tendency to be cloaked, suddenly painful without explanation.

At the Garrison, Keith had been ecstatic.

The quiver when Shiro first caught his hip and pulled him back was enough to permeate his day with hope. Obviously, they were in love.

On Castle Lion, even the slightest look caused his ribs to flap like wings. Tight chest, mouth like a cotton ball— _God, what did that even mean?_

Suddenly, things needed explanation. Things needed discussion. Nuances no longer being enough had thrown Keith for a loop and then hung him. Noose tightened; he couldn't understand why no one had warned him silences were like dangling from a clothing rail.

Children are never forewarned that love is hard work. There's The Talk about the birds and the bees, but for some reason, there's never a moment when a parent sits their child down and tells them that love—even between the most deserving of people—will have its bad days. There will be mornings when they turn on their side and look at the person they've sworn to adore and have a sense of being wrung out and inexplicably unsure.

Keith couldn't understand why the only grounds of human relationships he'd been raised on were the ones that gave him permission to fuck.

He ached for the lost moment where he could have taken Shiro's hand and said the right thing.

_I'm here for you as much as you're here for the universe, and even in the coldest expanse of space, I will keep you warm._

_We will do this together._

The inside of his jaw tightened, and he told himself there was nothing left but hope.

"Pidge! Don't—"

Keith lunged toward the Green Paladin and caught her waist before rolling them away from the oncoming monster. They clattered against the floor, but Keith slammed his palms onto the ground and forced himself to his feet. He tugged Pidge up by their arm to run, but she shifted back and steadied herself in preparation to take another blow.

He believed hope was more than enough.

They looked up at Matt, his exposed teeth blackened from the foam that leaked down in lazy dollops. The saliva created acidic puddles that sizzled through the floor, and Keith and Pidge exchanged a glance mixed with nerves and disgust.

"We don't have time to fight him," Keith tried and eyed that glowing blade. His other arm was normal, but its veins were thick and pulsing with illuminating purple. With every blink, Matt's eyes shifted from yellow and back to purple. "We have to find the others, grab Shiro and go."

"In war we have to make hard choices," Pidge echoed Shiro. "This is _my_ choice."

Keith yelled when Pidge stormed toward her older brother. She cried out his name with a mournful quality that Keith heard himself in, and it was why he allowed his Bayard to re-materialize. The onyx blade appeared in hand, and he sprinted toward the opposite side of Matt. It was startling to see the similarities between him and Pidge, even as a monster. Keith swung the face of his blade toward his back. He was determined not to mortally wound the boy but stun him.

Matt ducked and thrust his prosthetic arm toward his sister.

"Matt—it's me, _Katie_!" Pidge lifted her Bayard and jolted when the magenta blade collided with a spontaneous shield. The fact that it was meant to be a deathblow increased her urgency. She scooted backward and blocked another attack that caused her Bayard to spark.

"What sister?" he asked through harsh breathing, voice broken into a glitched growl. Keith couldn't find anything remotely human in it.

Pidge's face froze at that statement, eyes watery in their soft tremble but never breaking for tears. She flung herself back with a handless cartwheel, and when Matt charged toward her, used all of her upper body strength to balance as she planted her palms down and swung her legs around to trip him. When Matt curved to evade the kick, Keith roundhouse kicked him to the side. Matt tumbled from a force that would've snapped any human's bones.

"Listen to me! Remember me!" Pidge yelled and fearlessly rolled on top of him. Her armor glowed when she ducked to avoid the oncoming blade. Pidge caught it and screamed in pain as she was charred. Full of fear but resolute, they didn't let go as their glove's palm melted.

"Matt! Mom—remember _Mom_? She kept your room the same! She kept the posters up! Do you remember?"

Matt went to hit her with his free hand, but Keith ran and slammed it down with both hands. Keith had no idea how Pidge was holding his Galra arm with one hand, but he watched in awe as she continued to yell, voice desperate and choking on sobs that made her tenor thick.

"The 'I Want to Believe' poster? It's still there! You used to get so mad at me for wanting one, too. But I have one now. I got it because I wanted to be just like you! I worked so hard to be like you. _This_ is not you."

Blood streamed down the front of her wrist, draining toward her elbow. Matt squirmed, kicked with all his might. His back arched as he channeled what he could of the druid magic.

"Pidge!" Keith yelled. "If you don't let go, then he's going to cut your hand off!"

Pidge inhaled hard through a snotty nose and her eyes narrowed in on Matt who was flailing, apparently bound by whatever magic was aiding her in keeping him down. His prosthetic trembled against her hold, and she suddenly lifted her green Bayard high. Keith opened his mouth to scream at her, to tell her not to do what she was clearly prepared to do.

"This isn't the way to end things!" Keith screamed.

She struck down, and the sound of crushed bone and flesh resonated through Keith like a gong. His chest heaved, eyes widened. For a moment, he couldn't breathe.

Keith stopped when Matt howled in agony. He squeezed his eyes shut, flinching with every slam of Pidge's Bayard, but when he finally looked up to tear her off of Matt, he realized what Pidge had actually done.

"I'm sorry," she sobbed. "I'm so sorry!"

Pidge cleaved Matt's shoulder again and again, the glowing blood puddling out like spilled Quintessence. The boy violently convulsed and Keith winced when the blood splattered across his face, but the wince turned into a sharp inhale. A burn seared across his skin, and Keith leaned forward, holding his face in his hands as a pain tore through his skull. He grunted against his palms when his eyes audibly crackled and the cartilage on top of his head withdrew. Keith doubled over, dropping his hands from his face to stare at his aching nails.

Black claws descended toward peachy flesh and white cuticles. He rapidly blinked at the change, and he reached to feel for the ears that'd stood on top of his head, always too animated. There he found nothing but black hair and the soft flesh of skin shaped like shells. Keith ran his hands along them and in toward his sharp cheekbones. Suddenly not being able to move his ears was startling, but he was thankful for the absence of movement, normalcy. Keith didn't have time to consider what he might look like in the mirror. Pidge was crying, and Matt had gone still.

"Stop the bleeding," Keith said and leaned forward. He grabbed the side of his undersuit and used his sword to begin cutting off the fabric along his mid-section, exposing hard abdominals.

He handed it to Pidge who blankly stared at her shaking brother. His yellow eyes switched between them as his dismembered arm lay beside his tattered shoulder. Pidge hadn't directly hit the skin like Keith had thought, but instead, severed the arm directly before reaching the fleshy stump.

Matt suddenly closed his eyes and jolted as if shocked. He furrowed his brow, and when he opened his eyes, clear amber stared back at them.

"Katie?"

Pidge stopped on her own breath and leaned over to roughly encircle her arms around Matt's neck, shaking from suppressed crying but also disbelieving laughter.

Keith stared at the siblings and his eyes softened. He opened his mouth to say something, but Pidge beat him to it. She took one look at him and mouthed 'whoa.'

"You look human again," she said and then decided to stop crushing her brother.

Pidge scooted over and they took the offered cloth. She wrapped it around Matt's bleeding tech, commenting on his advanced pain sensors whenever he screamed. Once Matt was bandaged as well as he could be, Keith helped Matt to his feet. Matt was dazed, uncertain of his surroundings and shivering. Keith could see the trauma setting in, and he knew the boy wasn't going to be of use in that state.

"Take him back to the sewers," Keith ordered. "Then get to your lion as fast as possible. I'll find Hunk and Lance."

"I can't leave you behind."

"I'll be fine. Matt needs you."

The sound of boots smacking against tile rapidly approached, and he helped Pidge position Matt so they could walk back to the maintenance room. He barely remembered the kid from the few times he'd seen him around Shiro prior to the Kerberos Mission, but he was certain he hadn't been nearly as muscular.

"How will you know where to go?" Pidge asked as she and Matt limped down the hall. "Your helmet's gone."

Keith reached up, realizing. "Shiro…"

He couldn't believe he'd fallen for the trick _again_.

"I'll figure it out. Go while I distract the guards."

Having more than enough faith in Pidge's abilities, Keith turned and sprinted toward the troops. With the shield and sword, he easily tore through them, sending them to their deaths without acknowledging anything beyond the need to find his team. In the distance, he heard Lance's lasers firing and Hunk blasting away alongside him—even the slightest laughter and the clap of palms high-fiving. He attempted to run toward the voices, but the castle was a maze.

He turned himself around four times before he came to a complete halt, and Keith heatedly gestured toward God with his weapons.

"Why am I _like_ this?" Keith asked himself.

No one, not even his self-loathing, answered.

Keith turned down another hallway, this one significantly larger than the ones he'd been aimlessly running through moments before. It led him toward the top of a sweeping dual staircase, and he cautiously stood at the top of the right side. He pursed his lips and then exhaled before he descended them, feeling self-conscious for reasons even he wasn't sure about. He figured it had to do with the fact that, technically speaking, he was a prince, but again, he couldn't think about it. The idea was embarrassing enough.

Across from the stairs was a pair of purple doors with the Galra insignia across each. They stood together like titans, and he tilted his head back to gaze. Keith knew it'd be too conspicuous to rush through them, but there was no nearby vent system for him to crawl into.

The soles of his shoes grew hot.

"What?"

The floor suddenly bubbled up beneath him—murky and bulbous like the licking pops along the surface of boiling water—and Keith realized he was in the midst of being trapped. He attempted to drag himself out of the tar, but there was no way to shuck his boots free, even with all of his adrenaline empowered strenght. It was like quicksand, and with every pull, Keith descended faster. Grunting, the black muck's tendrils encircled his hips, and without warning, jerked him downward into an abyss that fought the laws of physics.

"From the moment we fought, I should have known."

Keith hit his feet with a hard smack. His knee gave without his permission, and he knelt with a clenched fist involuntarily thrust to his chest as a sign of respect. As if there were a hand planted on the back of his skull and forcing him down, he was suddenly bowing in proper form.

_Vrepit sa._

_Vrepit sa. Vrepit sa._

_Vrepit sa._

The disembodied voice continued. "What do you fight for?"

His jaw wanted to unclench, but Keith refused. Raggedly breathing and keeping his eyes wide open in the solid darkness, Keith noted the tightening muscles in his cheeks, the sudden forcing of his lips as if someone had wedged a crowbar between his teeth. He ground his molars together and shuddered before giving a muffled scream behind the tight line of his mouth. Keith whimpered as the tearing continued, and he jerked back his head, shaking it back and forth.

" _Who_ do you fight for?"

He knew that voice.

A rush of rage entirely blanketed rational fear. Keith dug his toes into the ground and tried to push himself forward, but he was held in place by invisible pressure.

"To think, this is my son."

He breathed hard, spit coating his lips as his eyes widened from the urge to fight. The next words violently tore from his throat, forced out with every ounce of energy he had against the tyrant.

"What have you done to Shiro?"

" _Ah_ —you mean our newest commander; Sendak's replacement."

"He is not your commander! He is not _yours_!"

_But is he yours?_

There was a pause so still Keith thought he was alone again.

"We've done the same thing to him that we'll be doing to you soon enough. I suspect it will take longer with your superior Galra DNA, but all humans tend to possess the same disposition. Enough exposure to loss, and you crumble under the weight of your own fragility. Love is the inevitable downfall of your race. It is the easiest piece of you to break."

"Shut up," Keith tried, but he was interrupted by an invisible smack across the face.

His nose combusted with blood, again.

"Haggar successfully altered Commander Shirogane's suspension of belief by seeking out the memories of those he loved. His memories of you were the most effective in completing his reprogramming for our military efforts. Enough recreations of your death, and he was willing to repurpose himself to serve all that is Galra. Hopelessness…"

Keith knew hopelessness.

"Hopelessness is so potent, my son."

"I am not your son!"

The blackness around him lightened and drifted away like smoke assaulted by a gust. Keith blinked through the wind and realized he was kneeled in front of a titanic throne with a grey back that disappeared into the unending ceiling above them. The pressure lifted from Keith's limbs, and he skirted back onto his feet, realizing he was facing Zarkon with Shiro perched to his right side.

Shiro stood with his arms crossed and eyes lit like sun streaming through a bottle of honey.

Zarkon's hands remained firm on the chair's arms.

Nothing about Keith unnerved them.

"He changed back," Shiro said, low and simple.

"It appears he's had contact with raw Quintessence. That or you weren't as thorough as you claimed to be."

Shiro cleared his throat, bearing his fangs at the implication. Something in his appearance twitched, and he looked to the floor in shame. It was a self-disgust Keith hadn't expected.

"I did exactly as I was instructed, sire."

Keith looked to the side and attempted to understand what that meant, and his mind whisked through the possibilities. His upper and lower teeth parted, and when he realized what exactly Shiro had done, he lifted his brow—all privacy between them, all intimacy, hit its knees and spread its thighs for the Galra Empire. Shiro wouldn't look at him, but Keith lifted his sword to bring attention to himself as a threat Shiro would have to fight in order to protect Zarkon.

The sword sank back into its grip with a sharp click and spun into the handle only to burst forward as a laser canon. It was half the Black Paladin's size. Without removing his stare from Shiro, he acknowledged the shoulder holster wrapping itself around his neck and bicep like a starved snake ready to asphyxiate. Keith ground his teeth, and his eyes stood wide in the kind of impulsive rage only fathomable through the high treason Shiro had submitted them to.

_So willing to love a man who'd exploit you for the very evil you are._

_You're inherently this way._

_It felt good the entire time._

"There's nothing about that Bayard I don't already know," Zarkon said, but he slowly stood with a push of his arms. He fixed his cape and walked forward, footsteps too leisurely for Keith's comfort. "Nothing I haven't already conquered. This weakness for the Red Paladin you're feeling—you will kill it yourself just as I did."

Keith couldn't focus on Zarkon.

"I gave you everything," Keith screamed, fingers curling tight around the pulsating trigger. A sinister thrum hung heavy near his head, and the hair along his neck lifted. The lavender glow from the gathering shot cast itself across not just Keith but the entirety of the throne room. "I was loyal to you through everything. I suffered and said so much _nothing_ for you—for _this_."

_If you shoot him, then you will be cracking your dreams like eggs._

Oh, God, but the yolk was already so black.

His heart was the half-fertilized embryo hitting the frying pain. The defining sizzle of a factory farm mistake, something so entangled in the cycle of life Keith knew there would be no going back if he made that decision.

Bottom lip shaking, he tugged the trigger into the second phase, and the energy in the room deflated like a kick to the lungs. Keith hit a knee and cocked his head to take aim.

_He never let you love him._

"Come home for the universe," Keith uttered, words unsteady from the hot tears pooling in his eyes. His dark pupils shook, and he flexed the trigger one more time. His words were thick with sorrow. "Because I'm not afraid to live without you anymore, Shiro!"

Shiro blinked and stepped back.

"Think about what you're doing, Keith!"

"This isn't about us anymore!"

Shiro snapped his gaze toward him and flung out his GalraTech arm. It burst with a discharge of magic Keith had never seen before. Its light matched the loaded canon, and the shades of purple melded together into blinding white light. Shiro inhaled hard through his sharp teeth—bangs flying off his face—and it was then Keith saw the glimmer in his eyes, the requited mournfulness slowly building a brick wall between them. It was the mutual understanding that this was where they were together and someone was going to die.

Zarkon stepped past Keith.

He did nothing to stop them.

"I love you," Shiro tried and lifted his arm as the veins in his face took on a glow much like Matt's had.

"Loved," Keith corrected.

Shiro darted toward him, boots smacking hard against the ground. "What did I say about past tense?"

With a final yell of Shiro's name—the single word heart rendering in its finality, searing itself across Keith's heart—the Black Paladin pulled the trigger and watched the swell of uncontrolled energy blast toward the Red Paladin.

_The universe is so much bigger than the ones we love. Find the fine line between autonomy and philanthropy and drag your foot across it. I promise things become so much smaller when space is the thermosphere and not the unfound planets in your head and heart._

Pieces of furniture lifted around them, the windows rattling with panes that cracked from split hairs on into splitting tops of frozen riverbeds. Glass combusted around Keith's head, but the sting of shards dragging along his face only fleetingly registered within his sensors. Keith kept his eyes on the blast and anticipated the desolation of a wall and Shiro's mangled body.

_I loved you._

Silence—cruel, cruel silence. Every clock, every tick within Keith's central core paused. He clenched his teeth through a mournful scream, the mirrors were suddenly covered in cloth, and the bird pecked at his front door.

_I loved you._

_I loved you._

_I loved you._

The expected explosion never came.

There was only a body.

It was a body that stood on two feet and with eyes so cool and full of graphite Keith couldn't stop gazing into them. Shiro's prosthetic hand was raised high as if calling for power, and in its palm was the concentrated mass of Keith's laser. He was panting with his heel pushed hard into the cracked floor, sweat draining down the canyons of his throat.

Shiro wasn't looking at Keith.

"Keith," he managed through his vicious breathing. " _Move_!"

The canon broke from Keith's arm and disintegrated into its dormant Bayard form. Keith clutched the tired weapon with white knuckles and rolled away from Shiro's line of sight. Barely understanding what was happening, he ran from the front of the room, unable to see when Zarkon spun on his heel to face Shiro's secondary deceit.

Keith sprinted to Shiro's side. He stood directly behind the massive energy Shiro couldn't seem to move on his own accord, and it occurred to him they were trapped. Keith smacked the side of his thigh so that the red Bayard appeared in his opposite hand, and running on the same instinctual know-how found with his lion, he lifted the black Bayard with a heaving chest. Keith looked between the two unnervingly quiet Bayards, and he silently begged.

They burst into dual swords that matched in weight and size—very much like the imposing blade Zarkon had once wielded against him—but the combination didn't seem like enough, nor did it act like an answer. He gawked at the pair, not only because of being able to wield both Bayards, but at the fact it did nothing for them.

"Swing, Keith!"

Shiro screamed his words, and the idea clicked.

Keith darted backward toward the nearly abolished throne. His heart attempted to crawl out of his throat from the fear of Shiro's idea not working, but he believed in Shiro.

Skidding to a halt, Keith darted forward and leapt at the leviathan of Paladin energy. Eyes never leaving the ball, he swung a shoulder and clasped onto both swords as tightly as he could. Zarkon was striding toward them, and Keith met the Galra leader's eyes one last time before he used every fiber of his being to rotate himself around like a pinwheel. One after another, the blades collided with the sphere, and right when Keith was certain he was going to dive into the energy and kill himself, it gave from Shiro's palm and vied for Zarkon.

The explosion roared around them.

Keith felt the Bayards disappear from his hands as the ground beneath them crumbled. Whether or not Zarkon was wounded, Keith didn't know. But as the side of the castle collapsed downward and took him with its rubble, he felt the strong grip of another's hand clasp onto his wrist.

_I'll be waiting for you._

_Shiro_


	10. 5

_It's love when you don't need him to survive._

Keith laid buried beneath the fallen debris; plates of technology, slivers of an obliterated throne, and heaps of tangled piping. He peeled his eyes open and immediately noted the semi-darkness clouded with a sharp chemical dust. Beside his head, something desperately sparked. The faulty wire drew its last breath, and all at once, Keith was surrounded by an eerie quiet.

There was that familiar metallic tang of blood along his tongue, and it prompted him to move. Keith shifted his hand to push himself up, but it was stuck. He darted his gaze downward, then realizing a set of fingers were still tightly curled around his wrist as if holding on for dear life. The reality of what had just happened slowly replenished his senses, and when Keith realized the hand was attached to a buried person, he jerked his arm back and started to dig.

"Shiro!"

Adrenaline told him to ignore the bleeding gash along the right side of his abs. The blood milked from his injury, barely held together by a shard of glass. Shiro coughed through fiery lungs when Keith uncovered his thankfully unharmed head. A sheet of ceiling had landed across Shiro's upper body on an angle that had protected him from the worst of the falling fragments.

Shiro blinked through the haze. He slowly turned his head to face Keith and hacked through the dust that'd settled thick along his throat. Keith grasped onto his hand to help him sit up, and the two stared at one another through smog.

"Are you okay?" Keith asked. The overwhelming fact that he'd been more than willing to kill Shiro warped his voice.

He'd never been more devastated by his own actions, but at the same time, he'd never felt more right in them.

_This is what you wanted._

_You wanted to be the hero._

A simple sadness drifted along Shiro's face, and Keith matched the look with his own. Wreckage crashed around them like a stark reminder, and it was met by a gust of burning smoke.

"I'm fine," Shiro said, surprising himself.

"We need to go."

Keith tried to clear his throat, his words having been hoarse, and he flicked his gaze downward.

Shiro reached and pushed back Keith's sweat matted bangs. The touch allowed Keith to look back to the man, and this time, he didn't recognize Shiro's expression. It was the softness around his eyes and the quiet lamentation of something Keith would never understand as the man's understudy. Shiro brushed his thumb along his temple, and he continued to stare at Keith in awe.

"Right," Shiro said. He dropped his hand and repeated himself. "Right."

"The lions are on the planet's surface." Keith stood and shifted his hip downward, wincing with the action. He touched his injury and swallowed the lump of fear. He thought about Matt and Pidge. "Do you know an easy way to get there?"

"The surface," Shiro repeated and he kept his voice low. His eyes were shifting in all directions, and Keith knew he was looking for soldiers, even Zarkon.

There was a crash behind them.

Shiro captured Keith's wrist and tugged him to the nearest ledge. It overlooked a small drop into a desolate courtyard. The fall still could've broken an ankle if one of them landed the wrong way, but considering what'd happened only five minutes beforehand, Keith couldn't complain.

Shiro took Keith's bloodied waist and kicked a heel out from beneath him, sending the Black Paladin downward. Keith fumbled to catch himself, and uncomfortably landed in a crouched position. Shiro landed with more grace and flat on his feet. He reached for Keith's hand before tugging him toward a tiny side door clearly meant for the gardener.

"Where did you come in?" Shiro asked, breathless and sweating from both exertion and panic. "Where _exactly_ are the lions? We need to get to them _now_."

"We came in through the sewers beneath the castle's residential wing."

Shiro tugged the door shut behind them, and they stood in an abandoned corridor together. They paused and listened for steps.

Shiro whispered, "You don't have a helmet. You'll die on the surface."

"I'm half-human," Keith corrected him. "I'll have more time."

Shiro tensed and then slammed his own back against the darkest wall. He gathered Keith up and placed his burnt prosthetic hand over Keith's mouth. His other hand planted against his abs, and he jerked Keith's back to his chest. Shiro pressed his mouth to Keith's temple and darkly stared as the shadow of a druid drifted through the sliver of light cast near their feet.

"Not enough time," Shiro said when he was certain they were alone.

"We need to find Hunk and Lance."

"Lions first," he whispered.

Keith shivered at the sensation of Shiro's breath ringing in his ear canal.

Shiro noticed, but he only squeezed Keith's hip and pulled him toward another door. It slid open without prompting. In the residential wing again, Keith jogged alongside Shiro who refused to free his wrist, even during sharp turns.

Clearly knowing the castle well, Shiro managed to find the maintenance room they'd entered through. He pushed Keith inside first and tugged the door shut behind them. Using his malfunctioning GalraTech, Shiro closed his eyes and breathed through the pain of attempting to use his magenta fingers to weld the door shut. While Shiro ensured temporary security, Keith knelt down at the vault and jerked the wheeled handle to the left until it gave.

"Everything else is computerized. Why not the sewers?" Keith asked. He sat down at the edge of the doorway and mentally prepared himself for the vertigo.

"Wait," Shiro said and finished with the door.

Keith stopped himself from dropping into the sludge. He gripped the edge of the entry and pushed back to turn as if to help, but Shiro was kneeling behind him to catch his chin. They paused together and locked eyes, and Keith could see the torment etched into Shiro's face.

"I didn't," he whispered. "I didn't do what they asked. It was the planet's impact on your biology. If what we did in the infirmary altered your appearance, then the reaction to the Quintessence in my system was an accident. Keith, I wouldn't…"

Keith reached up and covered Shiro's mouth with a hand. He arched an eyebrow and was decidedly too tired to have that conversation alongside his panic. The blood loss was overwhelming him, but he refused to let Shiro know.

Little did he know that Shiro wasn't mentioning it solely to keep them both calm.

"We need to ensure the safety of our team first," Keith evenly said.

Shiro's saddened gaze shifted away from Keith's face, but it sobered and he nodded. Shiro closed his eyes and regained his focus.

Keith leapt down first, landing with a splash. Shiro followed suit, and they both crouched when the world shifted beneath them. With the proper gravity returned, Shiro found his full-standing position and gestured for Keith to follow him.

"This system leads to one of the first spots they tried to colonize on the planet. I mapped it out in hopes of having an escape route in case I suddenly needed to leave," Shiro explained.

"Do you have a ship there?" Keith asked.

"I didn't get that far," Shiro admitted, almost sounding sheepish. "But it'll take us to the top of a canyon. We'll be able to find where you left the lions from there."

Had Keith attempted to escape on his own, then he would've died. The web of corridors intersected and wove together in ways Keith assumed fought the laws of space, and he had to trust Shiro wasn't leading him into a ditch to die.

They came to an evidently unused lift that was activated only through a sequence of codes Shiro had to kneel and configure on spot. Keith noticed the palm scanner, and he exhaled as he knelt down beside Shiro to inspect what he was working on. The pain in his torso knocked the breath out of him, and he shifted to the side. Shiro wrapped an arm around his waist and held Keith close. He kept his eyes focused on the wiring with a wrinkled brow.

"I'm guessing you're not using the hand scanner because they'd be able to track you," Keith said through ragged breathing. The white along his right leg of armor was pink from blood.

"They're still going to be able to track us through this, but it'll take longer. They're scouring the systems for activity right now."

The lift suddenly lit, and Shiro carefully helped Keith to his feet. Keith tilted his head back, and he realized he couldn't see where the lift stopped. It seemed to go on for eternity. After a pause, the lift jerked upward.

"As soon as we're on the surface, then we're going to have to run. The atmosphere will start eating you alive the same way it did on that other planet."

"I'll be fine. Right now, I'm concerned about Hunk and Lance." Keith held his injury and cleared his throat. He was starting to sweat through a chill that'd seeped into his bones. "I take it you know how to get underground with the lions. We're going to have to go back for Red."

Shiro paused for too long.

"There are private ports that couldn't withstand one of the lions, even with their full barriers."

The walls along the lift were patterned in periwinkle lighting that flashed by like strobe lights. Keith stared at Shiro with a lopsided frown, and he reminded his brain not to pull from the mission at hand. There was so much to think about, but he needed to focus.

Their lift halted in front of a pair of sliding doors with a smooth stop. Shiro knelt to hotwire them open, and Keith stepped forward to grip his shoulder for both balance and reassurance. Alone and given a second to catch their breath, Keith used his other hand to push back Shiro's bangs. He felt the man relax beneath his two hands, and he pressed his forehead to the top of Shiro's head as he inhaled through subtly clenched teeth.

"You'll be in the cryopod for a while again," Shiro said.

Shiro tilted his head back and Keith caught his chin to hold him still. He kissed him, firm and commanding. Shiro dropped a hand from his work and intertwined his fingers in Keith's hair. They parted as if it were the most casual gesture, and Shiro reassuringly kissed his chin.

"You better still be there when I wake up."

"Yes, sir."

"What was that?" Keith gave a raspy laugh. "Say it again."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Humor me."

Before Shiro could pop back with something to match his suspiciously aloof expression, there was a sharp dinging noise.

The doors opened with a tired rattle.

"Targets located. Beginning detainment."

A horde of Galra soldiers stood ready in full robotics, laser guns pointed at the two Paladins. Shiro was instantly to his feet, and he placed himself between the Galra and Keith, but Keith tugged him back and stepped up to his side with a hard look.

"You're going to have to fight," Shiro said, his fear for Keith evident.

"I'm good at that."

Shiro straightened his arm, but it didn't light up with the menacing glow they'd all grown accustomed to. Keith saw the instantaneous dread in Shiro's face, but he swiftly opened his palms for both the black and red Bayards.

Shiro grunted and tried his arm again. "The druids sealed me off from my arm."

"Think fast," Keith said and tossed Shiro the red Bayard.

He caught it and stared at the foreign tool, but Shiro didn't hesitate to swing the Bayard until the sword appeared. A shield followed, and the two flung themselves at the robots with only their adrenaline left as anchors.

Tired. They were both so tired.

Keith didn't have time to notice the ringing pain along his hip, but he did notice their location. It was a chasm with the kind of drop off that collapsed his barely functioning guts. Lined with that same green and white marbling, the mauve sky would've made it a sublime landscape worth remembering. That is, if he wasn't swinging a sword near a ledge that could've sent him falling over a hundred stories. From where they fought, he could see the spot where they'd hid the lions, but there was no getting there without killing off the first wave of enemy numbers.

The black Bayard altered weight when Keith's abdominals screamed for relief. The lack of force made his attacks less pointed, but there was nothing he could do to will it heavier. Shiro was behind him, swinging and watching Keith's back the best he could, but Keith was weakened to the point he could only defend himself.

He didn't notice when Shiro slipped.

It was during their fights with the final two soldiers. Keith sent his Galran opponent over the edge with a final rush of strength that thought to drain him. He told himself he had nothing left to give; blood sapped and exhausted from falling and using the black Bayard. Shiro would have to carry him to the lions, and already, he could taste the blood in his mouth.

Odds were he wasn't going to make it.

Keith swiftly turned to aid Shiro anyway he could. It was then he saw what'd transpired. From the opposite side of the perch, the soldier stood with his foot on Shiro's hand and dug with his boot's pointed toe. He held his laser gun down, ready to fire.

Not as spent as he thought, Keith charged toward the soldier. He swung his blade—eyes wide and overwrought with rage—and he was unmoved by the on spot decapitation. Keith cried out and kicked the soldier over the cliff but didn't anticipate satisfying thud that'd come with the soldier's finalized death. They were too high. The body would never be collected.

Seeing Shiro gasp and struggle, he hit his knees and reached for Shiro's biceps and tried to tug with all his might. The entirety of his midsection pleaded for him to stop, and hot tears pricked his eyes. The glass inside him was digging deeper into the flesh, slowly killing him. Keith grunted and couldn't look Shiro in the eye as he failed to hoist him to safety.

_Weak._

_You're so weak._

"You need to get to your lion. You can't stay out here or you'll die." Shiro panted, clawing at the rock the best he could. He lost his grip enough to slide, and when Keith grappled for Shiro's elbows and slid with him, Shiro's words swelled with anger. "Keith, let go!"

Keith cried out and held tight to Shiro's arm, tears streaming down his face as the sun boiled his blood. "If I let go then..."

"Then you'll live!"

Keith pressed his forehead to the white rock beneath him and dug his nails deeper into Shiro, hitched breathing filling the panicked silence between them. Keith remembered the ledge where Shiro told him he loved him—fiery sky and shaky words. He remembered being afraid to say it back. He remembered being afraid to fall. He was a pilot and he was so afraid of falling.

"I can't let you die," Keith whispered, and his voice broke on the next words. "I can't let it happen again, not when you're doing your best for us!"

"You'll be fine. You're always fine, Keith," Shiro snapped. "You have yourself, and you have the universe. It's counting on you. _Voltron_ is counting on you. It'll count on you, whether or not I live or die, and _that's_ what matters. I know you know that. I taught you that."

"You won't die!"

Shiro watched the blood trickle from Keith's nose and make a pool beneath his face. He looked up at Keith who refused to let him go, and Shiro pursed his lips, fighting his own tears.

Keith didn't loosen his grip as he spoke. "I just wanted to make you proud of me. I worked so hard…"

"I _am_ proud of you," Shiro finally said, and for a moment, he smiled through his exasperation. "I'm so proud, Keith."

"Don't tell me that when I can't even—"

They scooted forward again. Keith pulled him closer.

"Keith, let go. That is an _order_."

Let go.

An _order_.

_Not weak._

_Never weak._

Keith slowly lifted his head and met Shiro's stare. Without explanation beyond cosmic force, he calmed—dipping his feet into a pool of knowingness that cooled his head. Keith leaned over the edge even more and he smacked his hands against Shiro's clinging fingers. The fingers trembled beneath his palms, and Keith weakly parted his lips to speak.

"I'm the Black Paladin now."

He tossed Shiro off the edge, and at the sound of oncoming footsteps, tugged himself over and after Shiro.

Together, they free fell.

Shiro screamed his name, and the man reached for him with his robotic arm, face ringing with disbelief. Keith reached back for Shiro's suddenly glowing hand, and the black Bayard gleamed as a blade in Keith's other tightly clenched fingers.

Their hands met with a smack.

"I've got you," Keith said, but that barely reassured Shiro.

He knew they were falling to their deaths.

Keith held tight to the prosthetic, and the familiar purr of the Black Lion raced up his spine. A flash of yellow tinged his irises, but it disappeared as quickly as it came. Keith brought back the sword, and with a clean upward swipe, drove the blade against Shiro's prosthetic arm. The druid magic fought against the Paladin energy with an earsplitting screech, but Keith dug his teeth together and cleanly ripped through the mechanics. The blade appeared on the other side.

The agony in Shiro's yell escalated as Quintessence poured from his arm, but Keith remained centered. Behind Shiro, a rush of black drove toward them—growing in size with every passing second—and when Keith spotted the flashes of red and yellow, he closed his eyes and inhaled to fill his lungs, to find peace. The black Bayard disappeared from his fingers in a pulsation of light, and Keith swung himself once more to throw the arm as far as he could into the arroyo.

The Black Lion's jaw opened wide to catch them both.

_I love you._

Keith and Shiro hit the interior of the lion with an exhausting crash, but at the thought of the other Paladins, Keith was quick to his feet. He strode toward the Black Lion's cockpit with a firm limp, his hand covering his side. Shiro was on the floor, in shock and bleeding out, but Keith didn't look back as he grasped onto the handles and shoved them forward.

"Come on, boys," Keith said through grating breaths. "Locations, everyone."

Three screens popped up around him, and Keith smiled to himself when Hunk, Pidge and Lance appeared, looking mostly unscathed but concerned. Allura ignited the central focus of his screen as his lion redirected toward the sky, barreling forward with the storm shard and dusty pink churning in taunting greeting. Allura stared at Keith with her arms down, clearly gripping the edge of her palm readers, but she managed a relieved smile.

"You're alive."

"I know," Keith said through a near-delirious laugh.

In his peripheral vision, he caught the glints of green, blue and yellow.

"Keith, are you okay?" Lance asked, leaning forward in his seat. "Man, you look _horrible_."

"Thanks, buddy," Keith said and coughed, wiping the dried blood from his upper lip.

"Where's Shiro?" Allura asked. She was searching Keith's face. "Keith, what happened? You've been offline for over an hour."

"I'll explain later." Keith shifted his head to the side so that they could see Shiro's form on the floor. He was breathing but unmoving.

Hunk pressed his lips together and fought the gleam in his gaze, but he inhaled hard the second Lance leaned over to press his face into his hands. Pidge shifted back and yanked off their helmet, hiccuping on a sob that caused Keith to reach up and rub his eyes with dirty gloves.

Returning to Castle Lion felt like nothing.

The Black Lion fell into determined autopilot, which was for the best. Keith stared through the screen at the richness of oncoming space—a place he'd once thought to be so contained and dark within its frigidity. His hands drained their warmth, but the sheer enormity of the universe manifested within his heart and burned him like the atmosphere he was breaking free from.

Keith tilted his head to the side along the headrest. He thought about home; he thought about the fine line between autonomy and philanthropy; he thought about Patroclus and Penelope.

The medley of planets that coursed past him were accented by surrounding ships that'd come to aid them, and when he spotted the hangar, Keith closed his eyes.

His dreams were full of silver flashes, beacons that stood on baked rocks like lighthouses in the inkiest rushes of obscurity—soft waves, a begging moon that hung high.

Keith's adolescent miles stretched behind him in his deep sleep. There were certain images he understood to have not happened yet, but he didn't conceive as impossible; Shiro's aging fingers dragging along both sides of his scarred throat, his friends laughing over glasses of iced whiskey in a house he'd never seen, and then his ear pressed to itchy summer grass that let him hear his own heartbeat. Small moments he was yet to collect but hoped for with all of his being.

Reverse.

He's eighteen again, and Shiro is telling him goodbye. They're standing together before takeoff, and while Shiro spent the morning kissing him with an unspoken 'sorry,' Keith feels betrayed. He knows Shiro has to go, and he's told Shiro to go, but Keith is afraid for himself.

_You'll be okay._

_I'm not worried about you._

'But I'm worried about me.'

Keith doesn't say these words.

He lets Shiro go with a salute.

The rocket disappears into the thermosphere and Keith is suddenly in the rocking chair outside his shack, gazing up at the oozing night sky. He's been expelled, and he's alone, but there's still space and hopelessness. He resents space as it drips on top of him, swallows him whole like a sentient water painting, and as he thinks about the failed relationship between light and space, he disappears into the same black water from before.

Keith closes his eyes.

When he opens them, there's silver light.

_I'm not worried about me, too._

Keith woke up three days and several peaceful dreams later.

The water drained from around his limbs and loudly sloshed at his ankles. Still human in form, Keith's eyes slowly peeled open as the grogginess ghosted across his face.

Shiro was standing in front of the tank, arm crossed over his chest and smile shifted to the side. Behind him stood Allura, Coran and the rest of the Paladins. Their unified smiles grabbed at Keith's heart and caused his chest to heave, and after gaining some bearings, he rubbed the side of his face.

"Hey," he managed. His next words were slurred. "How's everyone doing?"

Shiro grabbed one of Keith's biceps before he could tumble out and laughed at the awkward collision, steadying Keith with a 'whoa.' The Black Paladin pressed his forehead to Shiro's chest, and Keith felt Shiro's shrug before the man cradled his head. He ran his thumb along the back of Keith's neck.

"You're here," Keith whispered, pain medication clearly still present in his system.

Shiro leaned down and pressed his nose to Keith's crown. "I'm here."

Lance bumped his hip against Hunk's and motioned for Pidge to follow him out the door along with everyone else. Allura pressed a palm to the side of her face, and Coran whistled as he trailed after the rest, smiling in self-satisfaction. Keith looked past Shiro's arm to watch them leave the infirmary, and his brow furrowed in temporary confusion.

"They're so gross," Pidge murmured.

Keith pulled back and eyed the spot where Shiro's prosthetic had been severed. It was the first time Keith had ever seen the amputation, but he only fleetingly looked it over.

"Don't worry," Shiro reassured him. He noticed everything. "They're building me a new one."

The memories of them falling flooded back, but before Keith could become overwhelmed, Shiro reached for his chin and redirected his attention.

"Are you okay?" Keith asked.

He expected the typical 'I'm fine.'

Shiro contemplated that and gently tilted Keith's head, as if inspecting every pore. He dragged his thumb along Keith's bottom lip and then stroked the corner of his mouth.

"I feel like this is the first time I've really seen you in two years," he said. The earnest pulls to Shiro's voice opened a different kind of wound. "I never thought I'd be this happy again."

Words were lost to them both, and Keith weakly pulled Shiro closer by his hip. He leaned in and hesitated as if giving everything that had happened between them a final, much needed once over. Shiro waited with the same amount of patience he always had, and Keith knew that Shiro would have let him walk away if need be. This was not a game of obligation.

Keith pressed his mouth to Shiro's and cautiously reached up with both hands. He tenderly captured both sides of Shiro's face. There was the softest inhale from Keith, but Shiro matched it as he gathered the other up in his arm, hand smoothing up and down Keith's back. A humid warmth appeared between their faces, and Keith reached up with both thumbs to swipe the tears off Shiro's face.

"I'm sorry," Shiro said, words heavy with grief. "I'm sorry for doing this to you."

He tried to look away from Keith, but Keith held him still.

Though, he was still waking up, he knew exactly what he wanted to say.

"I forgive you."

"Don't say that because you feel like you have to."

"Trust me," Keith said, that familiar dryness hitting his tone. "I don't do anything I don't want to do."

Shiro quietly brushed his nose along the side of Keith's head, clearly sorting through his emotions in an attempt to contain them. Keith slid a hand up his chest and savored the fact that his person was there.

"I want to be with you," Shiro whispered, even though they were alone.

"Then be with me."

Shiro took Keith to their room, and never before had Keith felt half as loved.

A quiet struck Castle Lion following their escape from Zarkon's castle. That is, until the Red Paladin's suit of armor shifted to a very apparent silver and Allura felt her call to the Red Lion.

Somehow, Keith had seen it coming. In his heart of hearts, he'd never expected Shiro to want to immediately fight again.

Shiro couldn't stay, and Keith understood why.

From the moment Keith mentioned Voltron again, it was an unspoken agreement that, once Shiro's arm was properly fitted and wired by Hunk and Pidge, Shiro would leave. For how long was up to Shiro, but after a gentle sit down with Keith and the rest, the team made the conscious decision to let Shiro go. He needed time, and it was their way of being there for him.

"It's not going to be forever," Shiro reassured them, on the floor of the lounge and leaned back between Keith's knees. "I'll turn up for visits."

"Outer Senshi Shiro," Pidge joked, and it was Hunk who understood the reference. They high-fived and Lance turned to them for an explanation.

"Thank you for letting me do this," Shiro said, suddenly sincere. The tone elicited attention from everyone. "I need to figure some things and..."

Shiro tripped on his words, not sure how to explain himself unless it was beside Keith at night. 

"Don't worry about it, man. We all deserve to be happy," Hunk assured him and then flopped down beside Shiro. He swung an arm around the man's shoulders and tugged him close. He lifted Shiro's new arm. "But uh—you're morally obligated to a tune up every three months with that thing, so don't think you'll be getting too far."

"Understood," Shiro said, weakly chuckling.

He lifted his new arm to the light and appreciatively flexed the fingers.

Lance collapsed down on the opposite side of Shiro and also swung an arm around him. "Can I have your room?"

"No," Keith breathed, tired. 

"It's the best room," Pidge said and lied across the three's laps, posing on their side. "But it's Keith's room now."

"Straight up nasty implications, Pidge," Lance said, but Keith leaned over Shiro's head to look amongst his team.

Lance winked at Keith who pushed at his head.

Matt appeared in the doorway with a tablet in hand. He examined the motley crew and then let his tablet fall at his side when Hunk blew a raspberry against Shiro's face.

"Good to know we're in safe hands," Matt said, even drier than Pidge in nature.

"What's _that_ supposed to mean?" Pidge asked.

"Nothing," he said and then Allura stepped in behind him, laughing. The room was suddenly lit with a holographic blue screen and they groaned in unison at the sight of red Galra insignias. "Spotted a Galra fleet nearby, though. Better get moving."

"Stop groaning and suit up," Keith said, comfortable in his authority. 

Shiro squeezed his leg when he stood, and Keith couldn't handle looking Shiro's praise in the eye. 

"Don't sound so excited, Keith," Lance snapped as he strode ahead. 

"Oh, but I love watching Allura make you look bad."

He jogged up beside Lance who wrapped an arm around his shoulders.

"I hate you," Lance tried, but then Hunk knocked both their heads. 

Watching them walk away, Shiro smiled.

"They're in good hands," he said to himself.

He believed every word of it.

Shiro left a week later.

Dressed in his silver Paladin armor, Shiro stood inside a hangar with Keith and the rest of his friends. A single bag laid slung over his shoulder, and he shifted his weight onto a single foot when everyone, except Keith, refused to look at him. It was the game of 'who'd cry first,' and everyone breathed in relief when Coran was the first to break into tears. Lance followed, and from there, the Paladins were pacing around the hangar and mopping up cheeks, laughing at themselves.

"They're afraid of me leading them," Keith said, arms over his chest.

Shiro reached out and ruffled his hair. "You're better at this than me, Prince Keith."

Keith scrunched his shoulders beneath the ruffling and groaned at 'prince.' "You're saying that to make me feel better."

Shiro stopped messing up Keith's hair and suddenly gripped the back of his neck. With everyone present, he pulled Keith into an open mouth kiss and dipped him back until Keith had to depend on him for balance.

"My hero," Shiro said and pressed their foreheads together before swiftly righting them.

"Come back to me," Keith whispered as Shiro dropped his hand from his back.

Shiro stepped to enter his ship.

That space between them closed.

Keith could breathe.

"I always do."

With Lance and Pidge holding both of his arms, Keith calmly watched the spacecraft's engine turn over. Keith momentarily closed his eyes, but he opened them in time to watch Shiro depart from the hangar with a short wave.

A hero never loves you more than his cause.

 _And maybe_ , Keith thought. _Maybe that's not such a bad thing after all._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading this and commenting along the way. It meant so much, and I'm so fucking thankful for every single person who endured this hell ride with me. 
> 
> I gained so much from writing this.
> 
> Thank you, thank you and thank you.


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